Symphony
by Firebird9
Summary: An overture is only the place where the music begins. Set in the months after 3.8 as Jack takes Phryne up on her challenge to improve on his first attempt and they begin to contemplate a future together whilst solving a case that has its roots in the past.
1. Prelude 1

**Author's Note:** It's been a very long time, but I'm back. A huge thank you to all the people who have continued to read and review my fics - you have no idea how much I appreciate seeing your kind words appear in my mailbox.  
As always, very special thanks go to FoxFireside - I will forever be grateful to MFMM and the MFMM fandom for bringing such a wonderful friend into my life.

* * *

 **Part One: Prelude**

 _ARRIVED SAFELY. LETTER FOLLOWS. YOURS._

Jack smiled, although the weight that had settled in his chest as he drove away from the airfield a week before was still there. She had made good time, he thought, and, more to the point, she had made it at all, travelling half-way across the world in something he struggled to think of as anything other than a flying death-trap. Because if anyone could achieve such a feat, it was his Phryne.

His.  
He re-read the telegram, his gaze drawn irresistibly to that last word. She could have signed it 'Phryne'. Or 'P.F.' Or given a lengthier farewell: it wasn't as though she were unable to afford a more loquacious message. No, her choice of words had to be deliberate, and he smiled just a little more broadly, although it still wrung his heart. She had signed herself 'yours' because she had decided – at long last – that she was indeed his, and had employed the economy of the telegram to her advantage in telling him so. He wondered what her promised letter might say, and how long he might have to wait for it. Several months, perhaps. It was not as if a letter could travel by aeroplane, or be transmitted through the wires like a telegram. But there was no reason he couldn't write to her before then. He folded the message carefully and placed it in his breast pocket, alongside the picture of her that he had taken to carrying there. He would write to her tonight, when he got home.

...

Phryne had lasted three days at Norfolk House before removing herself to her flat in London. Had Jack been with her, she thought, he probably would have dragged her away on the very first morning, when breakfast had ended with her almost throwing a pot of marmalade at her father.

It had started innocuously enough, as it usually did, with her mother attempting to make polite conversation.

"Now darling, I hear all kinds of alarming stories from your aunt, but have you managed to meet any suitable young men during your time back in Melbourne?"

"No dear, because she's managed to settle on an entirely unsuitable one," her father responded before she could think of a single word to say.

"Father..." Her tone was low, warning. She thought she had already made it clear on the journey home that the subject of Jack Robinson was entirely off-limits.

As he always did, her father ignored her. "She's managed to fall head-over-heels for some stiff-necked policeman who follows her around like a puppy dog."

"Oh, Phryne." Her mother looked, as she so often did, disappointed. "Not that Detective Inspector Robinson that your aunt keeps mentioning? He's hardly a suitable match. You'll be a baroness one day, you have your future to think of. A dalliance here or there is one thing, but it really is time that you settled down, and not with some colonial thief-taker."

"That 'colonial thief-taker' saved father's life, and mine, not to mention bringing Janey's killer to justice." Phryne's tone had been acid.

"Darling, that doesn't entitle him to-"

"It entitles him to your gratitude, if nothing else, and a little respect."

Her mother looked baffled. "Respect? For a-"

"For a decent, honourable, hardworking man. Not that you'd recognise one of those if you tripped over him in the street."

"How dare you talk about your father like that?"

"Phryne, don't speak to your mother like that."

"Or what? You'll lock me in the cupboard until I rethink my ways? I don't give a damn about the barony, and Jack's a better man than you'll ever be. And as for you," she turned to her mother, "I don't know what Aunt Prudence has told you, and I don't care. If it wasn't for you finally choosing _now_ to threaten to leave father, I'd still be living happily in Australia, rather than being here trying to solve your problems!"

"Don't you dare raise your voice to your mother!"

"Don't you dare try to tell me who I can and cannot fall in love with!"

"Young lady, as long as you are under my roof-"

"I can assure you I have no intention of remaining here any longer than is absolutely necessary!"

"Leave this table, right now!"

And she had grabbed the marmalade and been all set to throw it at him when she had seemed to hear Jack's voice sounding slightly desperate in her ear: "Miss Fisher, please!" And so she had slammed the jar back down on the table, turned on her heel, and stormed from the room. It had not be an auspicious start.

...

Nonetheless they had persevered because they all, her father, her mother, and she herself, realised that the future of the Barony of Richmond-Upon-Thames, and the estate, and everyone who depended upon the estate for their living, rested upon the decisions they made next.

"No."

"But Phryne, the gentleman who sold me those shares promised me they'd triple in value within the next twelve months."

"I don't care _what_ he promised you, those shares are so speculative you'd probably be better off burying the money in the garden and hoping it produces a money-tree! Wool. Wheat. Meat. Beer. No matter what the economy does, people will always need food to eat and clothes to wear. And somewhere to live, but God knows you don't need any more land. Don't you have someone to advise you? Well?" she prompted, after a moment's uneasy silence.

"Well... Yes, I did. But he was like you, always banging on about risk. He was never interested in going after the big rewards."

"That's because those 'big rewards' always come with an even bigger risk. Honestly, father, you haven't changed at all: once a gambler, always a gambler. Could you please, just for once, for mother's sake if nothing else, try to understand the necessity of taking a more cautious approach."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"Give me authority to act on your behalf. Let me go to London and tidy up this mess: get you out of all these high-risk investments before anything can go too drastically wrong, and find a new financial advisor to look after your interests in the future. And then promise me that you'll actually listen to him. And _don't_ borrow any more money!"

Perhaps, after all, it was just as well that Jack hadn't been there to drag her away because after several more rows, including one in which her father slapped her across the face, she got her own way, and when she did finally depart for London she left with every financial document a very thorough search of the manor could produce and her father's written authority to act as his agent. And a split lip that would take several days to heal and which she rather wished Jack had been there to witness.

...

 _Dearest Jack_

 _As promised, here is my letter, no doubt the first of many. I wish more than anything that you really would come after me, but I do understand that in asking that I asked far too much. So I shall ask this of you instead: wait for me. Wait for me, Jack, because I have every intention of coming home to you. You have never been just another artist, another dancer, another lover to me. I love you dearly, and if I have one regret in all our time together it is that I have given you ample cause to doubt that._

 _At first glance, my father's financial situation appears complicated, but less dire than I feared. With luck I should be able to resolve matters here within a few months, and then rest assured that I shall be winging my way homeward._

 _Yours with all my heart,  
Phryne_


	2. Prelude 2

_Dearest Phryne,_

 _There are no words to express how much I miss you. My office seems empty, my evenings dull, and my heart ...but perhaps, after all, it is better not to talk about my heart. However you may feel about me, Phryne, I love you, and I have done for a very long time. You are without a doubt the single most interesting – and infuriating – person I have ever met, and you have changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. For the better, I hasten to add!_

 _I received your telegram today, and was very relieved to hear that you had arrived safely in England. I hope that you will likewise return safely to Australia, where I know all your Australian friends eagerly await you._

 _Eugene Fisher remains in custody under close guard. At this stage it appears that he is indeed criminally insane, and as such is unlikely to face either a military court martial or a court of law unless and until he is deemed mentally fit to do so. In the meantime he will remain a guest of His Majesty. Regardless of the outcome, the Barony will remain your father's and, in time, yours. I hope that this news goes some way to reassure both of you that you, and those you love, are now quite safe from any threat he may pose._

 _I have received a postcard from Snr. Const. and Mrs. Collins, who seem to be enjoying their honeymoon immensely. Collins' temporary replacement, one Constable Meyers, appears competent, and thus far has refrained from falling in love with any young, betrothed women of my acquaintance._

 _I, meanwhile, remain  
Your  
Jack_

...

Phryne stared out of the window of the cab at the late-night city streets. How long had it been since she returned to England? It had been August when she left Australia; now the weather was chilly and people were planning for Guy Fawkes night, and yet it still seemed as though every day carried some new reminder of how much she had changed and how little England felt like home. Tonight had been no different. It had been her same old circle, all the Bright Young Things whose society she had always enjoyed in the past, a heady mix of the wealthy and the bohemian, stirred together with enough alcohol and hashish to make for a relaxed and thoroughly enjoyable time. Except that she had neither relaxed nor enjoyed herself. The young men knew enough by now not to seek her kisses or court her favour, but instead circled her warily with longing, lovesick eyes that made her long deep in her heart for someone else's steady gaze. Her girlfriends giggled shrilly and teased her about leaving her heart in Australia, pointing out that whoever he was, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and regardless of where her heart lay her body was right here in London and could lie anywhere it chose. She thinned her lips bitterly. She had tried that, only to push her would-be lover away at the last minute as an overwhelming feeling of _wrongness_ knotted her stomach and brought tears to her eyes. It didn't matter that Jack might never know: she still felt as though she were betraying him, and everything they had shared. It seemed other men were no longer pleasing to her, and so, having long made a habit of only doing exactly what did please her, she simply stopped accepting their romantic overtures.

The cab reached her flat and she let herself in, tiptoeing across the foyer in order to avoid the attention of her staff – she was not in the mood even for their company – and up the stairs to the first-floor parlour where the fire could be stirred into life and the lamp shed enough light for her to re-read, for the hundredth time, the precious letter than she had finally received from Jack. When it first arrived she had devoured it, hungry to take in every word he had written as quickly as possible. Now she lingered over it, able almost to hear his voice, picturing the self-deprecating quirk of his lip as he clarified what he meant by telling her she had changed his life, the frown of anger and concern as he wrote of Eugene Fisher, the amused arch of an eyebrow as he summed up his temporary constable's lack of romantic entanglements.

Most of all she savoured just three short phrases, the words that she had always dreaded hearing until suddenly they were all that she longed to hear: 'I miss you', 'I love you' and 'I remain your Jack'.

As she so often found herself doing she pressed the letter to her heart, for all the world like a silly schoolgirl and not a woman long experienced in breaking hearts whilst fiercely protecting her own, tears stinging her eyes as she whispered "I miss you too. I love you too. Oh, Jack, I'd give almost anything to be yours right this minute."

She had only one picture of him, that dreadful photograph that Fredrick Burn had taken right after Jack had taken it into his head to tease her with her newly-revealed fear of spiders. The newspaper print was grainy and blurred, and though it was now protected by a frame it was still creased and dog-eared from the time it had spent travelling in her purse. Alone in her bed she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, the picture in one hand and Jack's Buffalo Bill pin in the other. When this was all over... But that still seemed to be some time away. For every financial hole of her father's that she finally managed to dig him out of it seemed that she discovered another one. The estate was still in peril, and if the ever-more-insistent financial whispers from America were anything to go by she was running out of time to secure it. Although she had promised herself that she wouldn't, and she was damned if she'd ever let her parents know, she'd even resorted to using her own resources to correct one or two of the thornier situations. After all, she rationalised, it'd all be hers eventually anyway, and in the meantime the sooner all this was over the sooner she could leave England, and her father, far behind and return home to Melbourne and Jack.

Jack. No matter where she started, her thoughts almost invariably circled back to him. She would see him again, she promised herself, and when she did she would tell him all the things that she knew he longed to hear, because she at last longed to say them to him. She would tell him that she loved him, and that she was his, and that he had no reason to be jealous anymore, because she might still play the coquette but playing was all it would ever be. And if he couldn't accept that... well, he was just going to have to, that was all there was to it. With that, she slipped the picture and the badge back into the drawer by her bed, rolled over, and willed herself to sleep.

...

She awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of her butler, Mr. Page, placing a breakfast tray beside her bed.

"Good morning, Miss."

"Good morning, Mr. P."

"Coffee, and I thought I should bring this letter up to you straight away."

At once she was fully awake, her eyes taking in the Australian stamp and distinctively messy hand. "Thank you, Mr. Page."

"You're welcome, Miss."

Her butler opened the curtains and left quietly, smiling to himself. He and Mrs. Page had been right, he thought. Miss Fisher hadn't been herself since she'd arrived back from Australia, moping and distracted without a single overnight guest for company. At first they had suspected the Baron of some new game – the man might present a genial face to the rest of the world but the Pages had worked for his daughter long enough to know all too well just how cruel His Lordship could be to his only surviving child – but the weeks had rolled by with only the occasional visit or telephone call between the two until it had become clear that, whatever the source of Miss Fisher's unhappiness, it wasn't primarily her father. And then a letter had arrived bearing an Australian stamp and addressed in a man's somewhat untidy hand and Miss Fisher's eyes had gone wide and she had snatched it up like a starving child snatching bread. She had been peaceful, almost dreamy, for the rest of the evening, and it had all made sense. The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, heartbreaker extraordinaire, was in love with her antipodean correspondent.

...

The envelope felt surprisingly stiff, and it was only when Phryne opened it that she realised why. As well as a letter, the envelope contained two photographs pressed carefully between protective sheets of card.

 _Dearest Phryne_

 _I know it's only been a few days since I last wrote to you, but you may recall our recent case involving a certain photographer who apparently regarded his occupation as adequate excuse for some rather dubious 'artistic' practices. It appears he's since been arrested on various obscenity charges, with the result that the Victorian Constabulary has come into possession of a vast quantity of his photographs. Many, of course, are pertinent to the impending court case, but those that are not are doing little more than taking up space in an evidence room. A sergeant of my acquaintance found the enclosed, along with several others which he thought might be of interest to me, and was good enough to pass them along. I thought you might appreciate them as a memento of our professional association._

 _I hope that you are well, and that matters in England are proceeding according to your wishes._

 _With love,  
Jack_

She couldn't help but chuckle a little at his words. 'Professional association' indeed. One of the photographs showed her with her arms about his neck, eyes wide with alarm – that damn spider! He had had no right to tease her over it – while the other was a better version of the newspaper shot, her with her finger pressed against his lips, his expression wooden, as she compelled him to hold his tongue and not make the situation any worse than it already was. He had labelled them both on the reverse, 'candid photograph of Phryne Fisher and Jack Robinson, Melbourne, July 1929', and she shook her head fondly. Trust Jack to treat personal photographs as though they were evidence. In a way, she supposed they were.


	3. Overture 1

**Part Two: Overture**

Jack Robinson paid the cabbie and looked up at his destination, taking a deep breath as he did so. What was he doing here? He had never been a gambling man. Even as a child he would refuse to bet on anything, and yet here he was, in Kipling's words 'risking it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss', and well aware that he might indeed lose everything. What would he do, he wondered, if he found her with another man, blinking up at him from those beautiful eyes as innocent and uncomprehending as a cat? Turn around and go home, he supposed. Admit he was a fool and start again, somewhere new, somewhere where she wouldn't be able to find him and he could drown his sorrows in peace. He squared his shoulders and walked resolutely towards the door. He had come all this way: he was damned if he'd turn back now without at least knowing for sure.

In her first-floor study, Phryne rubbed her eyes tiredly. It was the middle of the afternoon and she'd been reading stock reports all day. Damn, damn, DAMN this crash! Just when she was finally getting her father's finances back on an even keel the bottom had fallen out of the markets – all the markets – in spectacular style, and while her own fortunes would survive she was already grimly aware that it might take months to deal with the repercussions for the barony. Months in which she would be unable to return to Australia, and Jack. She bit her lip, trying to resist the urge to cry. She had already wept over the issue more than once, and was at the point where shame at her own weakness was giving way to a weary acceptance that by the time she did finally make it back to Australia it might be too late. Jack was a patient man, but why should he wait forever for a woman whom he had no reason to believe would wait for him? Dimly she registered the doorbell ringing, followed by Mr. Page's tread on the stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God for distractions.

"A gentleman downstairs to see you, Miss." Mr. Page proffered a card on his silver salver and she reached for it, only to freeze before her fingers could make contact.

Detective Inspector J. Robinson  
City South Police Station  
Melbourne

"No..." she whispered to herself, unable to believe what she was seeing, "it can't be." Her eyes snapped up to her butler's face. "The man at the door – did he speak with an antipodean accent?"

"I believe so, Miss."

In an instant she was on her feet and at the top of the stairs, her gaze fixed firmly on the familiar, impossible figure below.  
"Jack."

It was barely a whisper, but it was enough to draw him from his contemplation of the vestibule in which he was standing to fix his wary, hopeful gaze upon her.

"Jack!"  
It was louder this time, and then she was flying down the stairs towards him so fast that he moved to meet her at the bottom not because he'd really had time to register what her reaction meant – what it had to mean – but because he was terrified that she'd fall and break her neck. Evidently, she hadn't changed a bit.

"Phryne."

She flung herself into his arms and pressed her face into his neck, and he turned his own face into her hair, breathing in the familiar, well-remembered fragrance of coconut-oil shampoo and French perfume, and beneath it sweet, seductive Phryne, and she was crying, she was crying against his neck, clinging to him as though she never wanted to let him go, and he knew that he had won, he had won, that his desperate gamble had paid off and she really was finally, improbably, wonderfully his.

After a long moment they drew apart just enough to gaze into one another's eyes.

"But, how?" Phryne caressed his cheek, her hand as soft and tender as in his imaginings. "Why?"

He shrugged, that same old familiar shrug. "You told me to come after you. It's a romantic overture."

"I wrote to you and told you not to, that you should wait for me instead."

"Huh." He considered this for a moment. "The letter can't have reached me before I sailed." And then his eyes narrowed into the teasing expression that she knew so well. "If you want I could go back to Australia. The letter's probably there by now-"

"Jack Robinson, don't you dare!" She was laughing now, and half-crying at the same time, and he moved one hand from her waist to cradle her head.  
"Or, I could stay, and do this instead."

He kissed her. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, and this time there was no murderous ex-lover to worry about, no father yelling at her to hurry up, there was only the feeling of Jack's lips moving against hers, his arms tightening responsively about her as she pressed against him, his mouth opening eagerly to her tongue, until she forgot that there had ever been René to terrorise her, forgot the sound of her father yelling at her, and remembered only that there was Jack, and that he loved her, and that she loved him in return.

After a long, long moment they parted and stood gazing into one another's eyes.

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too."

And then, like flicking a switch, she was Phryne again, poised and in control and not in the least the starry-eyed, lovesick fool mooning over her man – except that her hand retained a firm grip on his, as though she were absolutely determined to ensure that he would have no opportunity to make good on his threat to return to Australia and wait for her there.

"When did you dock? Have you had lunch?"

"This morning, and I had... something... on the docks." He still wasn't entirely certain what that 'something' had been, but it was tasty enough, and hot, so he wasn't complaining.

"Where are you staying? Do you have luggage?"

"I left it with a porter; and as for where I'm staying, I was hoping you could recommend somewhere."

She paused at that, and their eyes locked again. Anyone else would have missed the subtle change in his tone, although possibly not the slight, suggestive tilt of the head and quirking of the brow that accompanied it.

"Hmmm..." she pretended to think for a moment. "No, nothing comes to mind. You'll just have to stay here with me. Mr. Page!"

"Yes, Miss?" He had _not_ , of course, been eavesdropping – that would never do – but a good butler knew to be at hand when company arrived, in case he were required to fetch refreshments or perform some other small service. In this case, there appeared to be a number of them.

"This is Inspector Jack Robinson, from Australia. He'll be staying here with me. I need you to send for his luggage from the docks, and bring a tea-tray to the parlour for us. Sandwiches – ham, cheese and mustard pickle if you can manage it – plus whatever else Mrs. Page has to hand. And call the Billingtons and tell them I won't be able to make it to the dinner party tonight, as I have an unexpected guest. You can clear my social engagements for tomorrow as well, although if there's anything with the accountant, the solicitor, or the financial advisor for heaven's sake let me know – I really can't afford to miss any of those. And if my parents telephone, you are _not_ to mention the Inspector's name. It's fine for them to know I have company, but I'd rather be the one to tell them who it is."

"Very good, Miss. Shall I take the Inspector's coat and hat?"

Belatedly she realised that Jack was indeed still wearing his coat, although his hat had ended up on the floor at some point in the preceding moments, and she stepped back, abashed, releasing him just long enough to allow him to remove it. "Thank you, Mr. Page."

"Thank you," Jack added, as the butler picked up his hat and accepted his coat, allowing him to reach again for Phryne's hand.

"So," she began, as she led him up the stairs, "as you can see, this is my London flat. Vestibule and cloakroom on the ground floor, plus the kitchen and Mr. and Mrs. Page's rooms. They're my household staff here. Dining room-" it could seat eight comfortably, he thought, and probably a dozen slightly uncomfortably "- and the parlour. The bedrooms and bathroom are upstairs, and there's a study through there. The top floor has the old servant's quarters, although I don't use them." She released his hand and spun in the middle of the parlour, a proprietary smile on her face. "What do you think?"

He looked around, taking in the rich colours, the plush fabrics, the elegant furnishings and the artwork on the walls, and smiled back. "I think even if you hadn't told me this was your home, I would have recognised it at once." He closed the gap between them, taking her hands in his once again. "You have a flair that is unmistakable." It felt like home, he thought, as her house on the Esplanade had come to feel like home to him during those last months in Australia, far more so than wherever he happened to actually be living at the time.

"So you like it?"

He nodded. "I do."

That seemed to please her. "Good."

She moved away from him and sat down on the love-seat, smiling up at him in invitation until he was seated next to her. He couldn't stop smiling back, and reached out to brush her hair from her cheek.

"I love you," he said suddenly, not really registering his words until she tilted her head on one side and responded.

"Well that's just as well. Because I love you too."


	4. Overture 2

"So, if you haven't received any of my letters then you won't have the faintest idea what's been going on with the estate."

She poured tea as she spoke, while Jack helped himself to several sandwiches. To his pleasure, there were also fresh scones and a Battenberg cake.

"None whatsoever. Is it as bad as you feared?"

"It is and it isn't. We recovered the deeds from my father's cousin-" Jack noticed that she didn't use Eugene Fisher's name "-but father had also taken every penny he could lay his hands on, and as you know we didn't recover any of that. An estate's an expensive place to run, and neither of my parents are particularly gifted when it comes to financial matters. Father never can resist the urge to invest in the latest get-rich-quick scheme, and mother's perfectly capable of ordering five ball dresses and then realising that she doesn't have any money to pay the coal merchant."

"They're quite the pair."

"You begin to understand why I had the type of upbringing I did." Seeing his smile falter at the thought, she went on. "Fortunately, there's the rent from the tenants, but with my parents that's nowhere near enough on its own. I've convinced father to sell a few fields – a neighbouring farm's been renting them for generations and the current tenant is keen to buy. We're due to settle in a couple of days, and that will assist immensely. The main problem is his 'investments'."

"Once a gambler, always a gambler?"

"Exactly. I've spent most of my time trying to work out where to sit tight and where to cut our losses. I thought I finally had it under control, and then everything went to hell on Wall Street, and..." she trailed off and made a face.

"We only had the bare bones of it on the ship, but I was speaking with an American investor, and he seemed to think it could take more than a decade for the world's markets to recover. I admit, I'm no expert in these matters, but he seemed to know what he was talking about."

"Yes, that's my concern as well. I think I've convinced father that the best strategy is to sit tight on the staple commodities: people will have to keep buying them no matter how bad things get. The returns are lower than the ones his shady fly-by-night deals promise, but they're virtually a sure thing."

"You sound confident."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "How do you think I've managed to turn my grandmother's legacy, the allowance I finally managed to wheedle out of my father, and a French war pension into the impressively large fortune I enjoy today?" He seemed at a loss for words, and she laughed. "I may have made a solid return on 'Bride of Babylon', but I only invested in that as a favour to Raymond, and I knew perfectly well that I could lose the lot. No, when I first took control of my own finances I found some very clever women and I asked them what I should do, and I listened very carefully before I made any decisions. And _voila_!" She gestured around at her opulent parlour to illustrate her point, before her expression clouded again.

"And then there are father's debts. Small, for the most part, but a few pounds here, a few pounds there... it all adds up. Every time I think I'm finally done speaking to creditors three more seem to crawl out of the woodwork. Like cockroaches."

He could picture her itching to crush the offending moneylenders beneath her elegant heel, and smiled. She couldn't help but smile back.

"And then, to top it all off, my mechanic tells me my plane's on its last legs and not fit to take me back to Australia. So even when I can finally leave all this behind I'll likely still have over a month at sea ahead of me."

"Not fit to fly?"

"Oh, don't worry. It got me here safely, didn't it? It's just wear and tear. Well, and that rough landing in Rangoon. And the sandstorm over Egypt. And it's possible a part or two were stolen at some stage. But that's all part of the adventure of aviation."

Jack closed his eyes. "Crash landings. Sandstorms. Stolen parts."

"I didn't have a choice, Jack. My parents' marriage... how could I just let that fall apart, after everything else my family's been through?"

Eyes open again, he frowned lightly at her. "Do your parents have even the faintest appreciation of just how lucky they are to have you?"

"None whatsoever, and it gets even better."

"Oh?"

"I'm due to drive up there the day after tomorrow to finalise the sale of that land. And at that stage..." she leaned into him, smiling, "I get to tell them that you've sailed half-way around the world to be with me, and hear them tell me once again how thoroughly unsuitable they think you are."

Seeing his expression cloud at that she set her tea aside and slipped closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Jack. Look at me." He raised his head reluctantly to meet her gaze. "In all the time that you've known me, has there ever been anyone like you in my life? Someone who was always there for me, willing to put up with me no matter what? To risk everything for me, even his own life? Someone who'd leave everything and sail half way around the world to be with me?"

He shook his head. "No."

"I'm the one who doesn't deserve you, Jack. Don't ever forget that."

He smiled and relaxed, leaning his forehead against hers. "Perhaps we should both just admit that we're luckier than we deserve to be."

Phryne had raised her hand and was toying with his tie and lapel when they were interrupted by a discreet tap at the door. She sighed.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Miss. The Inspector's bags are here. Which room should I put them in?"

The pair exchanged a look, and Jack felt his heart-rate increase. He knew where he _wanted_ them, but it wasn't a thought he was about to voice. Phryne came to his rescue.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Page; he hasn't had a chance to decide yet. Why don't we have a look while you clear away the tea-tray. In the meantime you can leave them in the hallway."

"Very good, Miss."

...

"You have three options," Phryne told him, as they reached the second-floor landing. "This room-" she led him through a door "-is the smallest, but it faces away from the street, so it's also the quietest. Or-" she led him back onto the landing and through another door "-there's this one. It's larger, but you do get the noise from the street."

"And what's my third option?" he asked, stepping close to her and holding her gaze.

She returned his stare levelly, her expression, for once, serious. "My room."

He placed his hands on her waist, his eyes never leaving hers. "I think we both know which one I'd prefer," he murmured huskily.

There was a frozen moment during which they regarded one another in absolute silence, and then Phryne's lips were on his and she was turning on her heel, drawing him backwards out of the guest bedroom and across the landing. Her door was ajar, and she kicked it the rest of the way open before leading him inside. He kicked it shut behind them, his heart now pounding furiously.

There was very little speech over the course of the next few minutes. All the clever talk, the double entendres, the quotes and witty banter had after all been nothing more than a prelude to this moment, and now that it was finally happening words seemed largely superfluous. Their clothing fell as they made their way towards her bed. There was a brief pause while Phryne retrieved her diaphragm from the nightstand and took care of the necessary precautions, followed by her slugging Jack in the shoulder when the memory of a spider, his constable, and a similar 'internal device' made him snigger in a thoroughly inappropriate manner, and then at last she was pulling him closer as he pressed her back against the mattress and she arched up to receive him, humming with pleasure and the sheer _rightness_ of it.

They lay together afterwards, her head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped about her, a light blanket drawn up over their bodies. Phryne murmured in contentment and nestled into Jack, thinking of all the times she'd imagined them doing exactly this, imagined his strong arms about her body and his hands caressing her skin. The reality, she thought, was even better than she had dreamed.

"Phryne?"

"Mmm?"

He was staring at the ceiling, post-coital bliss dissipating rapidly, leaving behind an unwelcome awareness of unpleasant reality. "What happens now?" How many men had he known to remain a part of her life after this moment, he wondered. There had been Lin Chung, and before him that bastard Dubois whose death Jack doubted he'd ever feel moved to lament, but apart from that...

"Well, I suppose at some point we should get married." She felt him freeze as her words penetrated his melancholy musings and held her breath for a moment before backtracking, suddenly anxious. "I mean, if that's what you want. I just assumed..." she trailed off helplessly, and he turned to look at her, his face a perfect portrait of confusion, disbelief, and cautious hope as he cradled her cheek with a hand that shook ever so slightly.

"More than anything. But you've always made your own feelings on the subject perfectly clear, and I'd never-"

"Isn't it a woman's prerogative to change her mind?" she teased, relieved. She raised herself slightly on her elbow to look at him, her gaze steady and sincere. "Believe me when I say I've had a _lot_ of time to think about this, Jack, and I have thought about it. Thoroughly. In all my life I've never met anyone like you, anyone who made me feel the way you do. I can't imagine life without you, and I can't imagine how a life together would work if we weren't married." She caressed his chest gently. "Think about it, Jack: your career, your reputation – would you really throw them away? Even if you did, we both know eventually you'd end up hating yourself for it, and hating me for being the reason behind it. And then there's the difference in our finances. It would be wonderful to pretend that it doesn't matter, and it wouldn't if this were just some casual fling, but we both know it isn't and it does. Marriage is the only thing that makes sense, and before you ask, yes, I would take it seriously. The whole thing, including the part about 'forsaking all others'." Her voice, which had risen in her earnestness, now became softer again. "Because I love you, Jack Robinson, and as hackneyed as the phrase sounds, that really does change everything."

His eyes never leaving hers he nodded slowly as he weighed up her words before rising from the bed. "In that case..." He glanced away briefly, locating his jacket amongst the discarded clothing littering her floor. His hand, well practiced in the art of searching pockets, moved unerringly to retrieve something, and when he turned back to her he was holding a ring-box. "You told me once that a man would have to be either very brave or very foolish to propose to you, but since you've already proposed to me..." He opened the box and held it out to her. "I know diamonds are the fashion, but I thought this would suit you better."

It was an opal, iridescent and perfect, shimmering in its gold setting. She stared at it, entranced by its beauty. It was a piece of pure Australia, which seemed to glow in the hands of one of the purest Australians she'd ever known as he paused, apparently considering his next words, before his lips quirked in amusement. "Phryne Fisher, will you take me as your husband?"


	5. Allegro 1

**Part Three: Allegro**

For a moment she hesitated. Contemplating the possibility of marriage was one thing. Actually accepting a marriage proposal was quite another. But then she looked up into Jack's steady gaze, and as was so often the case felt his near-inexhaustible capacity for calm restoring her own equilibrium. With a smile she rose up and kissed him before accepting the box from his hands with a heartfelt "yes."

He couldn't help but sigh with relief as Phryne slipped the ring onto her finger. She took time to admire it, turning her hand from side to side so that the light could set the orange flame in the heart of the opal flickering against the greens and blues at the periphery. Suddenly she began to giggle, and raised her head to look at Jack, her eyes sparkling almost as vividly as the stone on her finger. Once again she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him soundly

"Now _that_ was a romantic overture," she told him before falling back onto the bed in order to give herself over completely to the delicious laughter welling up inside her. After a moment Jack began to laugh too, and collapsed back onto the bed beside her where they continued to laugh until they eventually subsided into occasional giggles. Jack took her hand and lifted it, admiring the ring in its rightful place with a happy sigh.

"I never thought you'd actually say yes."

"But you bought the ring anyway?"

He shrugged. "I would have given it to you no matter what. For friendship, for remembrance-"

"For our 'professional association'?" That set them both off laughing again, before Phryne smiled and rolled on top of him, adding "I'll take it for love."

He chuckled and pulled her down for a kiss. "That suits me just fine."

...

Some time later they dressed and wandered back to the parlour.

"A drink before dinner?" Phryne offered.

Her words evoked an odd mixture of nostalgia and present happiness, and Jack closed his eyes briefly to drink in the sensation before replying. "Thank you."

She poured a generous measure of whisky for each of them before ringing the bell for Mr. Page.

"Would you take the Inspector's bags to my room, please, but there's no need to unpack. The Inspector will do that himself later tonight."

"Of course, Miss. And shall I have Mrs. Page prepare dinner?"

"That would be lovely. We'll amuse ourselves until then." She turned back to Jack, only to see him looking slightly uncomfortable. "Jack? Is something wrong?"

"I have a small confession to make."

That sounded ominous, and she steeled herself for something unpleasant. "Go on."

He fidgeted with his glass. "You mentioned the possible repercussions for my career if I were to be in an intimate relationship with you without benefit of marriage." He dragged his eyes back up to her. "The truth is I may no longer have a career, at least not with the Victorian Constabulary. I resigned."

"Jack! Why?" It was far from the worst thing he could have said, but the thought that he had done such a thing was shocking, and the thought that he had done it because of her was horrifying. He shrugged.

"I only had a few days before my ship sailed. There wasn't time to negotiate a leave of absence, even if they'd been inclined to grant me one, so I told them that I had to sail to England, wasn't sure when I'd return, and understood that there might not be a job waiting for me if and when I got back."

She held his gaze, forcing herself to remain calm. "And what will you do if there isn't?" He could afford to do nothing at all once they were married, but he could not have known that when he effectively sacrificed his career for her.

"I had considered the possibility that I might want to leave Melbourne entirely and start over elsewhere. If things went badly." He smiled. "Since they haven't... well, I'm not sure. Although there is a certain lady detective of my acquaintance who I suppose might be prevailed upon to offer me a partnership in her business."

He seemed so calm, even cheerful, that she felt her own calm return once again. "Hmm..." she smiled, toying with her glass. "Well, I don't know, Inspector. She might have to think about that. Perhaps a junior partnership to begin with, given your... lack of experience in some of the more controversial aspects of the profession."

He returned her sultry expression with one of his own, setting his glass aside and placing his hands on her hips. "Oh, I'm sure my experience in other areas would more than make up for any deficiency in my house-breaking skills," he responded, tugging her against him and delighting in her throaty laughter.

...

After a delicious meal and a leisurely evening in the parlour they returned to Phryne's room, where Jack lifted his suitcase onto Phryne's bed while she began to shift items around in her drawers.

"You should be able to just move things to one side in the wardrobe," she suggested, and he nodded.

"Alright." Apart from what he was wearing, he had brought only two other complete suits with him, and was indeed able to fit them into her wardrobe, although it was a little tight. Behind him, Phryne cocked her head on one side and considered.

"I'm sure a few of my things can be relocated. Or we could buy another wardrobe. Yes," she continued, looking around the room. "Another wardrobe, and some more drawers as well. There'll be plenty of room if we take out the chaise longue, and that can go in the vestibule. I've been meaning to get a seat to go down there anyway. You can have that nightstand," she pointed. "I usually sleep on the other side."

He shook his head, chuckling softly, then caught her arm and swung her around for yet another kiss. "I'm glad you're enjoying seeing to our domestic arrangements."

"I'm enjoying _you_ ," she responded, slipping her arms around his neck. "Have I mentioned how glad I am to see you?"

He tilted his head on one side as though considering. "You may have mentioned it once or twice. Have _I_ told _you_ how much I appreciate the welcome you've given me?"

She stretched out her left hand so that she could admire her engagement ring once again. "I think you've demonstrated an appropriate level of gratitude."

They both laughed again, still slightly drunk on the joy of their reunion and engagement, but then Phryne sighed. "You realise I can't wear this in public tomorrow? If someone from the papers were to catch sight of it... I need to tell my parents first."

"Somehow I doubt they're going to rush to give us their blessing."

She shrugged, wrapping her arms about his neck once again. "Having you here is all the blessing I need."

...

Phryne awoke the next morning to the delicious sensation of being wrapped in Jack's embrace. She smiled and stretched, then opened her eyes to receive a kiss and a husky "Good morning." She returned them both, then rested her palm on Jack's cheek and regarded him quietly for a moment.

"Is this real, or just some wonderful dream?" she asked softly.

"Dream, Miss Fisher?"

"It's just your being here, in London, our being engaged, it all seems so wildly improbable."

He nodded. "I see. Perhaps I can convince you that you're not dreaming."

"Oh?"

"Mmm." He pulled her close again and kissed her deeply, sliding his hand down her silk-clad form to cup the delightful curve of her buttock. Which he then pinched soundly.

"Jack!" She recoiled, glaring at him in mock outrage. "You beast!"

He shrugged, eyes dancing. "You wanted me to convince you that you were awake."

"Well I was going to stay in bed, but if you're going to behave like that I think I'll get up." She made as though to rise, and he schooled his expression into something resembling contrition, although it was obvious that he was still trying not to laugh.

"No, don't do that. If you stay here I promise to behave."

"If you're going to behave then there's not much point in my staying here," she shot back with a smirk, pushing back the covers. He caught her wrist and tugged her back down.

"Then I promise only to misbehave in ways that meet with your approval."

She gave a sensuous chuckle and subsided back into the pillows. "Now that's more like it."

...

She had only one appointment that day, to go over some papers with the solicitor who was managing the land sale for the estate, so after a leisurely breakfast the two headed for the British Museum where they whiled away their time exploring the historical treasures of the Empire. As they wandered arm in arm among the exhibits Phryne couldn't resist the urge to glance up at Jack's face. 'Dour', her aunt had called him once, not so very long ago, and she couldn't deny that that was the face he often presented to the world, but he wasn't dour now. Oh, he wasn't grinning like an idiot the way they had both been for most of the previous evening, but there was a distinct upward cant to the corners of his mouth, which she was more accustomed to seeing pulled down in an absent air of melancholic introspection. He really must be happy if he was wearing that expression, she thought, and hugged his arm, smiling. That action drew his attention, and his smile broadened as he looked down at her.

"Happy, Miss Fisher?"

"Perfectly, although I don't know why you keep calling me that. Are you going to do it after we're married?"

He considered for a moment, then chuckled softly. "I suppose I probably will. Are you going to keep calling me 'Inspector'?"

She tilted her head on one side as she thought about it. "Probably. Old habits die hard, and it is a part of our history."

He glanced around. "Well, we're certainly in the right place to reflect on that."

That made her laugh loudly enough to earn them both disapproving stares and a stern 'shush' from several of the other patrons. They pressed their fingers to their lips and tried to quiet themselves before they were thrown out.

"You're a bad influence, Miss Fisher," Jack told her primly once he had sobered enough for speech, and she had to bury her face in his jacket to stifle the fresh outburst of mirth that that provoked. That earned them still more disapproving glares, as no doubt none of the other museum patrons saw anything particularly amusing in the display of Etruscan vases they happened to be wandering through at the time, along with the attention of a guard, and they beat a hasty retreat to another gallery.


	6. Allegro 2

Phryne certainly wished she could retreat the next day, as she drove the Rolls towards Somerset. She was counting far more heavily than she liked on the presence of Mr. Hargreaves the solicitor, and Mr. Spinney the intended buyer of her father's land, to prevent too-dramatic, and possibly violent, a reaction to Jack's presence and the news of their engagement. Jack sensed her unease in her bright, brittle chatter interspersed with sudden long silences, and was uneasy himself. He was fairly certain that opposition from her parents wouldn't convince her to change her mind about marrying him – if anything, knowing Phryne, it was likely to have precisely the opposite effect – but the Baron had a temper every bit as fierce as his daughter's and a history of lashing out violently when his anger was aroused. He watched Phryne out of the corner of his eye as she drove. He had been raised not to hit girls and found it difficult even to imagine raising his hand against Phryne in anger, regardless of how infuriating she could be at times. For the Baron to take a swing at _him_ was one thing; for him to attempt to do the same thing to Phryne was something very different.

He took a deep breath and endeavoured to distract himself. Perhaps it wouldn't come to that. He prided himself on his ability to keep his cool under pressure and bring a situation under control before it could erupt into violence. Perhaps if he simply spoke to the Baron calmly, man to man...

The autumn air was cold, the bare trees standing out starkly against a sky of surprisingly vivid blue, but in spite of the chill outside the car the sun glaring through the windowscreen meant that he was growing uncomfortably warm in his woollen layers. He glanced enviously at Phryne, who seldom seemed to notice the temperature, whether hot or cold. She caught the movement of his head and returned his gaze briefly.

"You could always take your coat off until we get there," she suggested, then smirked. "It's not as if I haven't seen what's underneath."

He sniggered like a schoolboy. She _could_ , of course, have meant his jacket, but they both knew she didn't. Nonetheless, he shrugged his coat off gratefully, and felt much more comfortable as a result.

"These fields we're passing are part of the estate," she commented, and he raised an eyebrow and peered ahead.

"I can't see anything that resembles your descriptions of Norfolk House."

"Oh, you won't see that for a while yet. But my family owns rather a lot of land in these parts. Although a little less after today." Her father wasn't happy about that, either, which was not encouraging. Today could be a very bad day. Then she glanced at Jack again, and couldn't help but smile. How bad could today really be, as long as she had Jack Robinson by her side? Her father might land one or two blows on her, but she doubted very much that he'd manage more than that before Jack intervened. And she'd suffered far worse over the years. She reached out and squeezed Jack's hand briefly.

"Thank you, for coming with me," she told him.

He squeezed her hand in reply."Thank you for not leaving me behind."

...

Phryne took a deep breath as she accepted Jack's arm and walked with him to the front door of Norfolk House, intensely conscious of the ring on her finger and relieved to note that Mr. Hargreaves' car was already parked outside. Her father's butler, Mr. Boyd, answered the door, the absence of any change in expression indicating that he had already observed Jack's presence from the window. Being a servant he offered no introduction, and did not receive one.

"Your parents are waiting in the drawing room with Mr. Hargreaves and Mr. Spinney, Miss," was all the man said as he accepted their coats and hats.

"Thank you," Phryne responded, and allowed the butler to precede them down the hallway. There was the sound of masculine conversation from the drawing room.

"Sir, Miss Fisher has arrived," Boyd announced, and the gentlemen and Lady Margaret turned in response.

"Mr. Hargreaves, Mr. Spinney," she nodded her greeting to the two men, but her attention was on her father, who was staring at Jack with disbelief and more than a touch of dislike. "Father, I'm sure you remember Jack. Mother, this is Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, my friend from Melbourne. Jack, this is my mother, Baroness Margaret Fisher."

"Lady Fisher." He extended his hand, and Phryne's mother accepted it seemingly on reflex. Phryne might have inherited rather more of her father's personality than he would ever dare acknowledge aloud, but it was clear that her looks came squarely from her mother. There was the same delicate bone structure, the same fair, almost translucent, skin, the same luminous eyes. But where Phryne's gaze had the piercing quality of one who had learned early in life to take nothing at face value, Lady Fisher's held a slight dreamy vagueness. This, he thought, was a woman predisposed to trust others implicitly and continue to hope for the best no matter how much evidence mounted to indicate that things were in fact turning out for the worst. He could see how such a woman could have ended up married to a charming conman like Henry Fisher.

"Inspector Robinson. It's a pleasure to meet you." He did not miss the hesitation which indicated that, in fact, she did not consider it a pleasure at all, but wasn't about to rock the boat by acknowledging that her words were anything other than the absolute truth.

"Thank you, Lady Fisher. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance at long last. Phryne has told me a great deal about you."

He hadn't intended for that to be a telling blow, but he didn't miss the slight wince that his words elicited. "Has she?"

"If you don't mind, we have a business deal to finalise." The Baron's tone was both impatient and imperious, but Jack was nonetheless grateful to the man for extracting him from a conversation that was becoming more awkward by the moment.

"Of course, Lord Fisher, my apologies."

Phryne joined the men around the table as Mr. Hargreaves began to summarise the details contained in the agreement of sale, and Jack found himself effectively alone with Lady Fisher. She appeared to have collected herself somewhat and offered him a drink, which he accepted gratefully.

"So, how long have you been in England?"

"Three days."

"And what do you think so far?"

He scrambled mentally for something more acceptable than 'well, I've certainly been enjoying taking every opportunity to make passionate love to your daughter', and came up with, "the weather is more clement than I was led to expect."

To his relief, this socially-acceptable sentiment earned him a socially-acceptable laugh. "I can assure you, this is really quite exceptional weather. I have no doubt that you'll see some honest British rain very soon."

They continued on in this way until the scratch of pen on paper and a final round of hand-shaking signalled that business was concluded, and the Baron saw the other visitors out. At which point his genial smile disappeared and he turned to Phryne and Jack with a thunderous expression on his face.

"Suppose one of you tells me just what the hell is going on?" And then, to his daughter, "what is he even doing here?"

Phryne slipped her right hand into Jack's left and raised her chin, endeavouring to keep her tone light. This was the moment of truth. "I asked Jack to follow me to England. He did."

"And why the hell would you do a thing like that?"

Jack squeezed Phryne's hand in reassurance and answered mildly, "Because I happen to be in love with your daughter. And she happens to be in love with me."

"In love?" The Baron's tone turned scornful. "Now let me tell you something: you may be in love with her, but if that's the case then all I can say is you're a fool and you're wasting your time. Phryne's never interested in a man once she's bedded him, and I'm fairly sure that's already happened, so you might as well pack your bags and go home."

His wife gasped at such indelicacy, and Jack felt his jaw clench, but Phryne's eyes blazed as anger loosened her tongue and she took a half-step forward to confront her father's fury head-on.

"I can assure you that my relationship with Jack is no casual dalliance." She whipped her left hand up between them, displaying her ring before snatching it back down to her side. "We happen to be engaged."

There was a frozen moment as father and daughter glared at one another while Jack and Lady Fisher looked on helplessly, and then the Baron's hand shot out and he struck Phryne full across the face. She staggered with the impact, briefly stunned, and Jack surged forward, bearing the Baron back against the wall, all thought of remaining calm and talking things over forgotten.

"If you _ever_ lay a hand on her again, you will _wish_ I'd only thrown you in a gaol cell," he growled between gritted teeth. The Baron, overwhelmed by the furious strength of the younger man, held up his hands appeasingly and resorted, as he so often did when the odds were so squarely against him, to charm.

"Now Jack, surely you understand how a man's temper-"

"I understand that you've hurt her, time and time again, and it ends now."

"Alright, alright."

Jack continued to glare for a moment before releasing the Baron and stepping back. The Baroness was staring at both men in horror while Phryne glared at her father with undisguised hatred, sucking absently on yet another split lip. Her fiancé took her arm gently, still keeping a wary eye on the Baron. "Come on, Phryne; I think it's time we left."  
He waited for her nod of assent before starting with her for the door.

"If you want her that much, she's yours," the Baron called after him. Phryne froze under his hand, stiffening again as her anger rose to new heights, and Jack stiffened as well, tightening his fingers on Phryne's arm in a tacit plea for her to please, just this once, be willing to walk away.

"She isn't yours to give. Or mine to own," he responded coldly without turning around then, with a slight tilt of his head and an entreating look from the corner of his eye, managed to all but drag Phryne from the room.


	7. Allegro 3

Mr. Boyd held their coats and hats out to Jack wordlessly as he led Phryne from the house, and he took them awkwardly in his free arm without a significant change in pace. When they reached the car he deposited them unceremoniously across the bonnet and turned his attention to Phryne.

"Are you alright?"

"How dare he?" Her eyes were shining with tears that owed more to frustration and anger than to either grief or pain. "How could he?" She sniffed fiercely. "I wasn't exactly expecting him to be delighted, but he could at least have made some effort to act like... like..."

"Like a loving father?" Jack supplied gently, cupping her cheek with one hand so he could examine her injuries. Her skin was reddened from the impact of Lord Fisher's hand, and her lip was still oozing blood. The Baron had made no effort to pull his blow, and Jack clenched the fist of his free hand against the impulse to rush back inside and beat him until his face, too, was bloody. Doing so would likely see him locked up, and he didn't think the situation really merited the risk, especially when it would separate him from Phryne. Phryne nodded, tears now perilously close to falling, and he sighed. "I'm sorry," he said, not knowing what else he could say, and she sniffed again and looked up at him with a sudden smile.

"You were magnificent," she told him, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. He looked down, pleased by her approval but also slightly ashamed of his behaviour.

"I lost my temper," he admitted, somewhat unnecessarily.

"You put him in his place."

He met her eye again and smiled. "I suppose I did."

"And when you told him I wasn't his to give, or yours to own..." Her eyes were shining now, and he couldn't help but marvel at how quickly she seemed to have regained her customary joie de vive.

He shrugged. "I was only speaking the truth."

Her smile widened. "And that's why I love you, Jack Robinson." She looked up at the sky, and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly along with the tension of the previous ten minutes. "C'mon, mon amour, let's get out of here."

"Gladly."

She made her way to the driver's seat while he placed their coats and hats in the back before making himself comfortable once again beside her, feeling his stomach rumble slightly. It was a long drive back to London, and they had been supposed to spend the night with her parents before departing the next morning, but he was fairly certain they had passed a pub in the last village that looked as though it could offer a couple of hungry travellers a meal.

...

By the time they arrived back at the flat, late and tired, Jack had lapsed into a silence that indicated he was brooding. Phryne tongued her cut lip, thinking. He was obviously upset, but she wasn't entirely sure how to make amends.

"Perhaps I should have told them over the telephone instead," she mused, as they nursed their nightcaps.

"Hmm?" Pulled from his contemplation of the carpet, Jack raised his gaze to hers.

"Well, it would have given them time to come to terms with the idea before they actually laid eyes on you."

Jack considered her words for a minute before a slight frown wrinkled his brow. "Phryne. Are you apologising for what happened today?"

She shrugged, unconsciously hunching her shoulders in close to her body as though to present a smaller target to the world. "I suppose I am."

"Why?" He set his glass aside and reached out to draw her close. It was one thing for him to sink into morose preoccupation, but he hated to see his gay, vivacious Phryne upset. "Why do you assume that every terrible thing that happens in your family is your fault? That it's your responsibility to fix it?"

She thought for a moment, then sighed and lifted her head with a wry smile. "I suppose because someone has to."

"Why you?" He laid his forehead against hers. "Your sister's death; your uncle's threats; your parents' marriage; now your father's debts. And all they seem to give you in return is heartache and pain." As he spoke he touched his thumb once again to her lip, and she smiled gently and kissed it.

"Why are you so upset over a little cut?" she countered. "He's hardly the only man to have laid hands on me, so why does it bother you so much?"

It was the way she said it that wrung his heart. Dismissive, amused. As though being abused by men were simply an accepted, if unpleasant, fact of her life, regardless of how she might decry such treatment were it to be inflicted upon any other woman. And the tragic expression on his face wrung her heart in turn.

"My life has never been an easy one, Jack," she told him more gently. "Or a safe one. And in a way that's been a good thing. Because I couldn't have faced the things I've faced, or done the things I've done, if I couldn't handle a little pain, a little danger. It's made me stronger, not weaker. It's because of things like this-" she gestured to her mouth "-that you don't have to worry about me as much as you do. Yes, it hurts. But I'll recover. And it's not as if my father's temper is enough to intimidate me into leaving you. Because I'm stronger than that, Jack. You need to remember that."

He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head and reflecting on the irony of drawing comfort from a gesture that was intended to comfort her. "You're one of the strongest people I know," he agreed, feeling her relax into his embrace, "but, oh, Phryne, sometimes I wish you didn't have to be."

And with that they both had to be content.

...

She watched him as he slept. His face looked older in repose, she thought, when the pain and loss that she knew lingered just below the surface was no longer masked by the animation that came with wakefulness. He had still been upset when they had gone to bed, although he had been trying to hide it from her. Jack sometimes needed time to come to terms with things, and she hoped that when he woke the next morning he would be more himself. It had been strange, she reflected, having someone make such a fuss over her simply because of a little slap. She was unaccustomed to such treatment, and it had made her uneasy, although she had resisted the urge to snap at Jack over it. That really would have been unreasonable, she thought, to punish him for being concerned for her. She could see how, over time, such behaviour could weaken a woman, make her believe that she really was as delicate and fragile as it implied. And yet, there had been something intensely gratifying about being the subject of such concern. She stroked Jack's cheek. She really was luckier than she deserved, she thought, the memory of him pushing her father back against the wall and refusing to buy into his wheedling excuses making her smile. Tomorrow she would make sure her bruises were thoroughly concealed by her makeup, and they would do something Jack would enjoy.

...

Jack watched Phryne apply her makeup, deftly concealing all traces of redness, bruising, and bleeding. She had done this before, he thought, many times. As though sensing his scrutiny, she raised her eyes to meet his gaze in the mirror.

"Do you remember when Hugh was shot?"

He rolled his eyes slightly at the memory of the way his young constable had carried on. "A flesh wound."

"Yes, Dot told me you said that. Do you remember when you got coshed?"

He grimaced. "Which time?"

She smirked at him, and he knew he'd lost. "Exactly."

He couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips and stepped forward to stand behind her, wrapping an arm lightly across her décolletage and gazing down at her fondly. "You win."

She tilted her head back against him, smiling so that he couldn't resist the urge to lean down and kiss her. "Good."


	8. Allegro 4

The orchid house at Kew Gardens really had been a good choice, she thought. Not only because the weather had changed and ominous clouds were threatening to shed their burden at any moment but because, as she had hoped, Jack seemed to find the plethora of specimens collected from the four corners of the world to be both fascinating and soothing.

"Did you know that until the discovery of tea and coffee a hot beverage made from the dried roots of certain orchids was a popular drink in England?" he asked, and she made a face.

"In that case, I shall consider myself indebted to whoever introduced the tea-leaf and the coffee bean." She paused. "I believe it was also considered to be a male aphrodisiac, on account of the shape of the root."

"While the flowers symbolise feminine beauty and grace." He wasn't going to be drawn. Being thrown out of the British Museum for inappropriate conduct had been all the public humiliation he required; he felt no need to get thrown out of Kew as well. "You know, I grow orchids," he commented instead.

"Really?" He had heard that fascinated, flirtatious tone before, but it made a pleasant change to have her use it on him. "I thought they were difficult to cultivate?"

He shrugged modestly. "They can be, but it really depends on the variety. The ones I have all manage quite well in a warm room, and while you do have to be careful how you water them they much prefer being too dry to too wet. Which is useful if I end up neglecting them for a while."

"Who's looking after them while you're away?" she asked, suddenly picturing him returning home to the shrivelled remains of his once-carefully-tended plants.

"Mr. Butler. I hope that's alright?"

"Of course; I'm glad you thought of him." She was relieved. "What made you choose orchids?"

That was a slightly awkward subject, but after a moment's hesitation he answered. "I bought one for Rosie years ago. She liked the flowers but wasn't much interested in learning how to take care of it, so I took over. After a while, I came to appreciate them and acquired a few more. But you must be bored, hearing me ramble on about them," he added, having long ago learned that the only other people who cared to hear much about orchids were fellow enthusiasts.

"Not at all!" She sounded honestly surprised. "It's always fascinating to learn about something new. People have such a wide range of interests."

He stopped dead, struck by a new thought, and turned to look at her. "So all those times I've heard you telling men how interested you were in whatever happened to interest them..."

"I really was interested." She cocked her head. "Did you think I was just flirting?"

"Honestly? Yes."

She rolled her eyes slightly. She had been waiting for an opportunity to have this conversation, but she'd rather it wasn't here, in a place he was really enjoying. She didn't want to leave him with bad memories of it. "I do flirt, Jack, I won't deny it, and I won't deny that sometimes, in the past, I've enjoyed taking it further. But I also do it because it's a sound method for getting men on my side, and in this world that's a useful, and often a necessary, skill for a woman to have. And I really have learned all sorts of interesting things that I never would have known if I'd just stood there quietly minding my own business like a good little girl. How to fire a gun, speak Russian, fight, fly a plane... conduct a murder investigation."

"It's not easy to watch," he admitted tightly, and she sighed, stepping closer to toy with the lapel of his jacket.

"I never meant to hurt you, Jack, and I'm sorry for the times that I have. But you... I'm willing to stop _sleeping_ with other men, but I'm not going to stop talking to them altogether, and I need you to understand that. And I need you to stop punishing me for it by sulking and making sarcastic comments."

"I'm so afraid of losing you." His voice was barely a whisper as he gazed away over her head.

"I know." Her tone was gentle, understanding. "But what you told my father is true: you don't own me, and you never will. No-one will, and if you keep giving in to jealousy, losing me is exactly what will happen. Because I won't be anyone's property. Not ever again."

He sighed bitterly, hating the truth in her words. She did flirt. She wouldn't stop. And it made him jealous. And when he was jealous he sulked, and rolled his eyes, and used cutting words in an effort to wound her as her actions had wounded him. For the first time he had clear evidence that it had worked only too well, and he wondered just how long she had been planning this conversation.

"Promise me it won't go beyond words," he asked with a note of appeal, dragging his gaze back to hers. He was a fairly liberal man, he knew, especially compared with many of his colleagues. He had tried to be more liberal still, for her sake, but there were some things he just couldn't bring himself to accept, and the idea of sharing her with other men was one of them. To his relief she nodded slowly, holding his gaze.

"I promise. And I promise not to socialise privately with other men without your knowledge. Is it a deal?" She held her breath. If he said no then she would have to end this, no matter how much it hurt. She wouldn't allow him to keep her in some kind of modern-day purdah like those poor Mohammadian women she had seen – or rather, not seen – in north Africa. She had been through that once already, with René, and it had nearly cost her her life, and her sanity.

Jack stood there, gazing into her eyes, sea-green in this light. He had never fully examined the darker side of his feelings for her before, but now that he did he had to acknowledge that he didn't just love and desire her. He wanted her all to himself: fiercely, possessively, jealously. And he knew that at the root of those emotions was a desperate fear of losing her to some other man, someone richer, handsomer, more interesting, charming, artistic, liberal than he could ever be. They were ugly emotions, and the more he faced up to them the more he despised them. Left unchecked, they would make him miserable and compel him to make Phryne miserable too. He thought back over the last few days: the joy that had surged in his heart when she had raced down the stairs to fling herself into his arms; the thrill and the passion of their first lovemaking, and all the times they had made love since; collapsing in laughter onto her bed as they accepted one another's marriage proposals; getting thrown out of the British museum when they couldn't stop laughing at jokes only they understood; finally being in a position to defend her from her father's cruelty; waking beside her just this morning and lying there watching her sleep, basking in the knowledge that she really was there alongside him, that he was at long last able to cherish her and protect her as he had so often longed to do... Was he really willing to surrender all that simply because he couldn't overcome his fear that some other man might come along and sweep her away from him?

He looked at her now, just standing there before him without a trace of a smile on her face, her jaw set stubbornly, and he knew. If he couldn't control his jealousy then she would leave him. She would have to, or she wouldn't be the woman he loved. And that would be the one truly unbearable thing.

"It won't be easy," he admitted, pleading for her understanding. "Be patient with me Phryne, please, and remind me when I start to cross the line, because it won't be easy. But you're right. I do get jealous, and I do... punish you." He took her hands in his and was relieved when she didn't resist. "And I'm sorry for it. I will try..." he drew her hands up to his chest, holding them against his heart, "I will try not to do it any more."

Her eyes closed in relief, and he thought he saw the glimmer of a tear clinging to her eyelashes. "Thank you," she breathed, and he drew her close, wrapping her in his arms.

Phryne couldn't help but close her eyes as relief swept over her. He hadn't lost his temper. He hadn't shouted, or blamed, or walked away, or lashed out. He was her Jack, and he was willing to accept that she wasn't the only one who needed to change her behaviour if they were to have a chance at making this succeed. Her terms were fair, she knew. She hadn't suggested that she stop socialising with men altogether, and she had placed no restraints at all on her business and professional associations. But Jack needed the security of a monogamous relationship, without even the hint of an affair on the side. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have been the man she loved. After a moment she drew a deep breath and looked up at him. He met her gaze, his expression tender yet grave.

"Am I forgiven?" he asked.

"Am I?" she responded, knowing that at times she had been in the wrong too. He nodded.

"Then so are you." She paused, then gave him a small, coquettish smile. "Kiss and make up?"

He smiled back and accepted the invitation with relief.


	9. Allegro 5

**Author's Note:** Many thanks to missphryne for suggesting the scene where Jack learns the full legal implications of marrying Phryne. In writing it I drew on information from the Debrett's website and Wikipedia. British law has indeed allowed women to inherit certain titles 'in their own right' since at least the fourteenth century, if they have no living brothers or nephews. In the books Phryne has a brother, but he seems to have disappeared in the show.

...

The next few days provided plenty of opportunities for both Jack and Phryne to test their resolve. London was the social hub of England, if not the world, and The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher was most definitely a part of Society. And that, Jack swiftly learned, meant that he was destined to be a part of Society too. And so it was off to Saville Row, where he didn't dare even ask the price of the two new suits and new eveningwear that Phryne insisted he needed, the bill being sent straight to her house on the basis that they should last him well into their married life and so it was only fair that they be paid for from what would be the marital assets. As he suspected that the alternative might well be surrendering a limb, he acceded.

Then it was a seemingly-endless round of luncheons, suppers, dances, nightclubs, trips to the theatre, drives to the country... He learned how to dance, albeit with a slightly awkward self-consciousness, in the modern jazz style to records played on the gramophone in Phryne's parlour. Furniture pushed aside, a waltz or two to warm them up and put him at his ease, and then she was encouraging him in the frenetic hand-flapping, toe-tapping, risqué and surprisingly enjoyable moves that constituted the new form. Two nights later and he was dancing in a club with her, his inhibitions lowered by her laughing encouragement, a slightly-injudicious degree of alcohol consumption, and an awareness that if _he_ didn't dance with her then plenty of other men would be only too happy to. And because of that, when she did spare a few dances for her many admirers he was able to bear it with a fair degree of grace, even taking a couple of the laughing, wriggling women who formed part of their party for a quick whirl around the floor (although their wriggles were decidedly disconcerting: they certainly weren't trying to get _away_ from him).

He was introduced everywhere as her fiancé, and became used to the range of reactions that that provoked. Surprise, shock, and disbelief were common. Disappointment, some of it genuine, some of it mere flattery, that she and, in a few cases, he, was now off the market. Pity and concern, for her and, again, sometimes for him. The discreet enquiries as to whether they might be expecting an untimely arrival. Delight, joy, and heartfelt congratulations were noticeably absent in the initial responses, although often supplied later as good manners reasserted themselves. He told Phryne later about the men, and sometimes women, who had taken him aside and threatened to do unpleasant and in some cases terminal things to him if he ever hurt her. He _didn't_ tell her about the ones who took him aside in order to tell him that she was, for some reason, rightfully theirs, and that he should terminate the engagement and return to Australia forthwith. He simply informed them, as he had her father, that she was her own and free to marry whomever she chose. He regretted having to pin a couple of them against the wall for trying to assault him, but it was unavoidable. If Phryne saw him with bruises she was likely to do something unpleasant to whoever had inflicted them, and it wasn't as though there were any part of his body that he could feasibly keep concealed from her for more than the time it took them to drive home and make their way, inevitably, to her bedroom.

...

And then there was the meeting with Phryne's solicitor, Arabella Sharpe.

"I assume you're aware that Miss Fisher is the heir to the barony of Richmond-Upon-Thames?" the immaculately-dressed professional with the slightly imperious air asked.

"I am," Jack confirmed, before continuing with a slightly puzzled frown. "Although I'm still not entirely certain how that works: I thought only a man could inherit a title."

"That would certainly be the case if we were on the Continent," Miss Sharpe agreed. "However, here in Britain we've always liked to do things differently, and as a result it's a little more complicated."

"It usually is with you," Jack remarked to Phryne with a fond smile. She smiled back, although she couldn't help but feel nervous about what she had to tell him.

"Most titles are remaindered only to men," she explained, "but the barony of Richmond-Upon-Thames was established by writ, and can be passed to a daughter if the man who holds the title dies without sons."

"So Eugene Fisher..."

"As well as being childless had no sisters, and only one brother, who died in the War. And we're quite certain of that because he had the good sense to die of his wounds in a hospital rather than simply going missing in action."

"How very considerate of him," Jack agreed. "So when your father dies, you will become Baroness Fisher."

Phryne nodded. "Exactly. Or Robinson; I haven't decided."

Jack nodded acknowledgement of that possibility. "Or Robinson, if you prefer. And... I will be Baron Robinson?" he asked hesitantly. Phryne could tell from the look on his face that he did not relish the prospect.

"No." Arabella replied, and Jack visibly relaxed, clearly relieved. "The husband of a woman who holds a title in her own right receives no title of his own. You may recall Prince Albert-"

"Was never King Albert." Jack nodded again. "I do."

His relief was so palpable that Phryne hated what she had to say next. "However..." she began.

"However?" He knew that tone all too well. 'However' was never good.

"You will be expected to assume the responsibilities incumbent upon the barony."

"Such as?" He was already wary, Phryne thought, and caught her breath. She had asked herself many times whether, when push came to shove, she really would be able to go through with this marriage. It had never occurred to her to wonder whether Jack might change his mind. Now that it did, she realised just how very, very much she did want to marry him.

"Such as managing the estate, its assets and its tenants."

"Oh." He nodded. That didn't seem so bad, but the uneasy look on her face warned him that there was worse to come. "And?"

"And... taking the barony's seat in the House of Lords."

He went completely still, staring at a point above Arabella's head, until Phryne fetched the decanter of brandy and one of the glasses which were kept on hand precisely in order to revive clients temporarily stunned by some legal revelation or other, and poured him a healthy glass. He downed it mechanically and seemed to revive somewhat, turning a pleading gaze upon her.

"Can't you do it?"

"Of course. If we don't get married." To her relief he apparently realised the extent of her anxiety and set his glass aside so he could reach out to take her hands in his.

"I don't want us to not get married, Phryne."

She sighed, more grateful than he would ever know for that simple reassurance. "It's something the law is completely clear on: an unmarried or widowed peeress can represent her seat in the House, but a married one must rely on her husband to represent her interests. It's unjust, but there it is."

He nodded, and Arabella poured him another brandy. He swirled and sipped more slowly this time, still keeping hold of one of Phryne's hands, and appeared to be thinking. Suddenly he smiled and gave a quiet huff of amusement.

"Jack?" Phryne asked.

"Rosie always found it intensely frustrating that I never aspired to seek advancement within the police force. I can only imagine her reaction when she discovers that I may end up in the House of Lords."

If he was joking about it, Phryne thought, then he'd probably be alright, and she chuckled along with him at the thought of his ex-wife's consternation.

"And of course," Arabella interjected, "you're permitted to notify the House that you'll be unable to assume your seat for any given year."

"That's allowed?"

"Naturally. I'm not sure how much time you've spent around the upper classes, but they aren't exactly defined by their dedication to duty." Arabella's tone held the sharpness of one who having demonstrably excelled in her profession now found herself at the beck and call of people she despised. But she then directed a warm smile at Phryne, whom she considered a personal friend as well as a client, "present company excepted, naturally."

Phryne rolled her eyes. "I hardly think I qualify as an exception, Arabella."

"You do when it really matters," the solicitor responded, taking the words right out of Jack's mouth.

The rest of their business – agreeing on a contract that would give Jack equal access to, but not sole control of, Phryne's extensive personal wealth and assets – was concluded swiftly. Jack had initially been reluctant to accept even that, but had given in when Phryne had asked him point blank whether he'd prefer to be a kept man. The very thought was humiliating enough to convince him that her approach was the correct one, and he had raised no further objections.

...

They heard nothing from her parents for nearly a week, but then there was a conciliatory phonecall from her mother, followed by a slightly awkward high tea at Claridge's during which they somehow found themselves agreeing to allow her parents to host an engagement party for them, and all seemed to be if not exactly forgiven then at least accepted as inevitable and not worth the risk of coming to further blows over. At least, he hoped it was. There had been a few moments over the course of their tea when he caught a dangerous glint in Phryne's eye and an equally dangerous edge to her voice and was rather relieved, having frisked her for her dagger before they departed, that there were no sharp knives on the table.


	10. Dissonance 1

And now at last we have plot...

* * *

 **Part Four: Dissonance**

Time had slipped by, and already Jack had been in England for almost a month. Their engagement had been published in every newspaper with a society page and become an established fact amongst Phryne's social circle. A new wardrobe and bureau had appeared in her room and been stocked with a slowly-growing supply of Jack's clothing. Progress was being made on the barony's accounts. Between social engagements and appointments with solicitors, accountants and the like they had found time to visit many of the major sights of London and take a couple of day trips further afield. It seemed that the time would soon be ripe to set sail for Australia, and marriage, and the resumption of their lives there. And then one day they returned from a matinee concert to find a message that would throw all those plans into disarray.

"Two visitors while you were out, Miss," Mr. Page informed them as they shucked their coats and hats, "Mr. George Mortimer, and a woman."

"I doubt George Mortimer has anything to say that I want to hear. What about the woman? Did she leave her name?" she asked, more interested in the thought of a pot of tea to chase away the wintery chill of the street than dealing with social calls.

"No Miss. But she asked whether you would meet her at this address this evening at eight." The butler produced a sheet of notepaper on which he had written the details in elegant cursive. Phryne examined it with a slight frown.

"But she didn't leave her name?"

"No, Miss. She seemed rather perturbed by your absence, and declined to do so."

"How odd. Thank you, Mr. Page. Please have Mrs. Page bring us some tea in the parlour."

"Right away, Miss."

...

"George Mortimer?" Jack asked once they were alone. Phryne's evident distaste at the name had piqued his curiosity.

"Third son of the Earl of Oxford. He has political ambitions: stands for tradition and good old-fashioned values. God knows what he wants with me."

"Thinks women should know their place?" Based on that, Jack was as mystified as Phryne.

"At home having babies and throwing dinner parties whilst deferring to their husbands in all things. He has similarly particular views on the place of the poor, the working class, foreigners, Catholics, socialists, artists, writers, and anyone else who isn't wealthy, male, well-bred, and British."

"Sounds charming: I'm sorry I missed him," Jack responded with a deadpan expression. "What about the mystery woman? Do you recognise the address?"

"No," Phryne replied, regarding the message with a puzzled frown, "but it's in the East End. Not the best part of town," she clarified in case he was unsure. "It's a café, so a public place, but still..."

"No name. Could be trouble."

"Well, possibly, but I can't think from whom. I've been too busy with the estate to undertake any serious investigations since I got home, and as far as I'm aware all my real enemies are either dead or in gaol. Unless I've managed to make a new one without realising it."

"Could it be something to do with your father?"

"Maybe, but why wait until now to act? Father's been behaving himself in Somerset since we got home-" Jack raised a sceptical eyebrow and she smirked at him. "Several well-placed people are being very well paid to keep a close eye on him and inform me the moment he does anything else."

"Some other reason, then? You're a wealthy heiress."

"Kidnap for ransom?" She shook her head. "It seems unlikely. It's fairly widely known that I'm not the easiest of targets."

"A case, then?"

"It certainly looks that way. But a clandestine meeting under cover of darkness in a rough part of town is not an encouraging start."

Mrs. Page arrived with the tea-tray, a comfortable-looking woman in robust middle age with the air of someone whose chief pleasures in life included preparing good food and watching others enjoy it.

"Thank you, Mrs. P. I hate to trouble you, but could you bring dinner forward by a half-hour? It seems Jack and I will be going out tonight."

"Of course, Miss." She rather liked the new air of settled domesticity which appeared to have blunted the more extreme edges of her mistress' lifestyle. Not that a young person shouldn't have her fun, but you wouldn't find love in a series of fly-by-night affairs, and in Mrs. Page's opinion few people deserved love as much as her Miss Fisher.

"You're taking me with you, then?" Jack asked as the housekeeper left the room.

"Of course. Unless you'd prefer to stay here."

"While you go off to meet a person or persons unknown in a bad neighbourhood under cover of darkness? I'm assuming I can borrow something suitable from your household arsenal?"

"I'll have Mr. Page lay out a selection."

...

When considering the possibility of establishing what might be termed a 'serious' relationship with Jack, Phryne had contemplated only two possibilities. The first, worst case scenario, was a situation similar to that which she had endured with René, where jealousy and a desire to control her would be a prominent feature of a relationship in which she would come to be treated as little more than property until she did whatever was necessary to bring matters to their inevitably-painful end. The second, best case scenario, was akin to the arrangement she had enjoyed with Lin Chung, whereby Jack would become her regular companion at social engagements for which a partner was desirable, and her partner in bed as and when she wished (which, given the health of her libido, was often), but otherwise their lives would continue largely independently.

The situation in which she had actually found herself since Jack's arrival in London had proven surprising simply because it had not crossed her mind to consider it. Jack was certainly no René Dubois. True, he had his moments of jealousy but she had been impressed since their conversation in the orchid house by how willing he appeared to be to try to overcome them. But neither did he seem inclined to wait until bedtime or a social engagement to spend time with her. No, she had discovered to her amazement, having a serious relationship with Jack appeared to mean having her best friend on hand whenever she wanted him, and she was constantly amazed by how much more enjoyable her life seemed to be as a result. A trip to the museum? Hardly worth the effort alone, but she could wander the galleries for hours hand-in-hand with Jack, discussing the exhibits and whatever subjects they happened to call to mind. Dinner at home without company? Boring when one was alone, no matter how delicious the food, but a pleasure when shared with a dinner companion whose appetite for good food and good conversation was a match for hers. Even a tedious appointment with Arabella was both more enjoyable and less time-consuming when she had not only already discussed the relevant issues beforehand with Jack but also had lunch with him to look forward to afterwards.

And now it turned out that riding in a taxicab to a clandestine meeting with an unknown contact was also both more enjoyable and less worrying when her best friend was sitting armed at her side, particularly when she knew that he was just as capable as she was when it came to dealing with any situation they might happen to find themselves in, from questioning a frightened witness to a shoot-out with desperate villains.

Jack, meanwhile, felt invigorated in a way he hadn't since he had left Port Phillip. Oh, he had been thoroughly enjoying his time in London, basking in Phryne's presence and drinking in the culture and a variety of new experiences, but that was no more than a holiday. This was who he was. It was what he was trained for and what he did. 'What we do best', Phryne had called it once, and while he might argue that there was some stiff competition in that area these days, nonetheless he knew that he was indeed very, very good at it. Who knew what they might find in the East End? His mind drifted back over some of their previous cases. Drug baronesses, blackmailers, white slavers, mad scientists, and good old-fashioned killers, he had faced them all in his time and found that there was nothing quite like facing them with Phryne Fisher at his side. He took her hand across the seat, and when she turned to smile at him smiled back wolfishly.

...

"Here we go, Missus," the driver announced, pulling up outside the café on East India Dock Road.

"Thank you." Phryne handed him far too much money, and he gave her a questioning look. "It's possible we may encounter a spot of bother and need to make a hasty departure," she explained. "If all's well in ten minutes time you can consider yourself free to go, but in the meanwhile I hope you won't mind sticking around. Just in case."

The driver, whose name was Jim and who rather enjoyed a good Saturday matinee at the flicks, glanced from the money in his hand to the glamorous lady who had given it to him and the chiselled jaw of her companion and rolled her words around in his mind. "Anything for a lady, ma'am," he replied with a tip of his cap, and felt for all the world as though he'd just stepped through the screen into a film of his very own.

"Shall we take a quick turn around the block?" Jack suggested once they were both standing on the footpath, and offered Phryne his arm. They were a few minutes early and it never hurt to reconnoitre if the opportunity presented itself.

"Thank you, Inspector," she replied, tucking her arm through his.

The East India Dock Road was a main street in a busy, well-lit area, but the surrounding side-streets appeared both darker and quieter. Phryne looked through the window of the café as they passed.

"Do you see anyone you recognise?" Jack asked, steering them around a young lad wheeling an almost-empty barrow.

"No, and no-one who looks like they might be waiting for someone."

"It looks as though the back streets are a bit of a maze; we don't have time to case them before we make our rendezvous."

"Mmm. Perhaps we'd be better off waiting in the café. With a bit of luck there'll be a half-way decent brew."

"Can't be worse than we have at the station," Jack observed wryly.

They were almost to the door of the café when a commotion broke out behind them. They turned to see as cries of "Help!" "She's dead!" "Murder!" and "Call the rozzers!" cut through the usual clamour of a crowded street, and exchanged a sharp look.

"Murder?" Phryne exclaimed.

"It could be a coincidence," Jack pointed out reasonably. Phryne gave him a look that indicated just how much she doubted it. Jack returned it with a shrug that said he doubted it too but stranger things had been known to happen, and gestured for her to lead the way.


	11. Dissonance 2

The victim lay face-up in a nearby alleyway, a woman in her thirties dressed in a threadbare coat and scuffed shoes, her throat slashed brutally open. Although it was obvious that it would be futile, Phryne checked her pulse and gave Jack a quick shake of her head. That was all he needed to take charge.

"This is a crime scene: everyone please step back! Come on, all of you, away from the victim." And then, as they complied, "does anyone know who she is?"

There was some shuffling and mumbling on the theme of 'don't know, but seen her around' before one young man offered "yeah, it's that foreign lady what lives over on Sturry Street." He gestured back up the alleyway towards a building that appeared, from the variety of laundry hanging from various windows, to be made up of numerous small apartments.

"Thank you." Jack reached for the notepad that he carried by long habit in his coat. "May I have your name please, sir, and address."

"Stanley Green, sir. I live up on Grundy."

"Thank you," Jack made a note. "I don't suppose you knew her name?"

Green shook his head. "Sorry sir, but her landlord's Harry Wilkins."

"Harry Wilkins," Jack wrote carefully. "Thank you, Mr. Green. If you think of anything else..." he hesitated. "Miss Fisher?" She had been examining the body but looked up with a distracted air when she heard her name.

"Huh?"

"One of your cards for Mr. Green, please."

"Of course." She walked back to the men, taking a card from her handbag and passing it over.

"If you think of anything else, you can contact us here. My name's Jack Robinson." He purposely omitted his title. Phryne might still call him 'Inspector', but he wasn't really, not here, and he knew perfectly well just how territorial some police officers could be. Added to which, he mused, this seemed like the sort of place where a title like 'Inspector' might not be the best incentive to confidences.

A police whistle sounded in the distance, and he swiftly turned his attention to the body. The first officers on the scene might welcome their assistance, but if they didn't then he and Phryne might only have a few minutes more. That shouldn't have mattered – he was on holiday, and no longer a policeman, and he should have been more than happy to hand responsibility for the case over to the local authorities and go about his business – but in his heart of hearts he agreed with Phryne's assessment that this murder at the very time and place of their rendezvous was entirely too suspicious to be ignored, and so he had no intention of ignoring it until his suspicions were allayed.

"Coat and hat, but no handbag," he mused. "Robbery gone wrong?" He glanced at Phryne for confirmation of the thought, but she seemed preoccupied and didn't answer, so he continued. "But why cut her throat? And from behind, by the look of it. A woman this size probably couldn't have put up much of a fight, and judging by her clothing there can't have been much in that handbag worth stealing anyway. Certainly nothing worth risking hanging over. Unless you were desperate, I suppose, but even so-"

"Step away from the body please, sir."

He looked up to see a middle-aged, slightly portly man in a police uniform with a constable's stripes. Ah, the rozzers. He complied with a nod of acknowledgement. "Good evening, constable. I apologise for intruding on your scene. My fiancée and I were in the area when we heard the commotion, and being a police officer myself-"

"Do you have any proof of that? Sir?"

He reached for his badge, but checked himself. He had left that on the Commissioner's desk in Melbourne. Instead he drew himself up, offered his hand, and answered with as much confidence as he could muster. "Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, Victorian Constabulary, Australia."

The constable snorted. "You're a long way from home then. And a long way off your turf, so I'm going to have to ask you to stand aside."

"We secured your scene." Did he remember Phryne protesting in similar terms once, long ago?

"And I'm sure I'm much obliged, sir, but if you wouldn't mind..." Jack bit back a sharp retort and removed himself to a position a couple of yards away. Phryne joined him.

"Alright, did anyone see what happened?" Muttering and shuffling of feet. "Anyone know the lady?"

Jack glanced towards Stanley Green, but he jerked his gaze away. Whoever this constable was, it was obvious that he had few friends in the neighbourhood. They watched as he paced two or three times around the body, doing a thorough job of obliterating any footprints and trampling any evidence into the general grime of the alleyway in the process, before a sergeant and another constable arrived. At which point there was a hasty, muttered conversation before Constable One began hustling everyone out of the alleyway and positioned himself on guard at the entrance.

Jack checked his watch. "Only ten past. We might as well see whether our mystery appointment is still at the cafe." Phryne didn't answer, and he stopped, turning to position himself in front of her. "Tell me."

"I knew her, Jack."

"What?" He was mystified. Phryne might be many things, but slow to speak out on a case was not usually one of them. "Why didn't you say something when the constable asked?"

She made a gesture of futility. "Because I can't remember anything more than that. Not her name, or where I know her from – nothing! Why didn't you hand over your notes?"

He glanced away uncomfortably. "The constable seemed confident that he had the situation in hand."

She snorted, evidently returning rapidly to her usual voluble self. "That constable couldn't keep a Sunday school picnic in hand. You saw the way he trampled the scene."

He opened the door to the cafe and gestured to her to precede him, letting her choose the table before continuing the conversation. "So, you knew her. Seems likely she was the woman who asked us to meet her here. Are you certain you don't remember where you know her from? That young man, Green, said she was foreign."

Phryne gave him a wry smile. "You of all people should know that that hardly narrows the field." She rested her chin on her hand with a sigh and said nothing more. Jack, knowing the value of allowing people to think, simply nodded to a passing waitress and requested a pot of tea for two. Which, when it arrived, was actually quite drinkable.

...

They made their way home with Phryne still wracking her brain for an answer. Try as she might, she just couldn't place the woman in the alleyway. 'Foreign'? Well, that wasn't a lot of help. Her father might be a member of the English aristocracy these days, but if you added it up she doubted she'd spent more than three or four years in the country in her entire life. 'Foreign' could mean anything: Australian, French, Russian, American, Spanish, Italian... probably not Chinese or African, she thought: the woman had been white, but even so that hardly narrowed it down. Jack, to his credit, was patient, not intruding on her thoughts but simply taking charge of bringing them home and seating them both in the parlour with drinks before endeavouring to draw her back into conversation. She did her best to focus, but evidently it wasn't enough to fool him.

"Are you still thinking about her?" he asked, as they slipped into bed.

"Mmm," she nodded, then gave an exasperated sigh. "I must know her from somewhere, Jack."

He nodded and kissed her cheek. "You'll remember eventually." He paused, then went on. "Sometimes the easiest way is not to think about it. Just focus on something else and let the answer come to you."

"Like what?" She sighed again.

"Well..." he laid a couple of experimental kisses on her shoulder. Phryne was usually receptive to his advances, but it didn't pay to take these things for granted. "We could play cards." He knew how much she detested cards. "Or draughts. We could read a book, or talk about the weather." He was peppering his words with kisses and could sense her growing interest, so he trailed his fingers along her arm.

"Mmmm." She turned her beautiful eyes upon him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "What else could we do, Inspector?"

He pretended to think, kissing her lips in the meantime. "We could read the paper, or discuss politics. We could go over your father's investments again."

She gave him a sultry look. "What about something more... physical?"

He smiled, knowing he was winning. "I suppose we could practise our dancing."

She gave a throaty laugh and kissed him deeply, and he chuckled in return.

"Or, if none of those appeal, I suppose we could make love." Which was what they proceeded to do.

...

"Yvette Benot!"

Jack, accustomed to being hauled unceremoniously back to wakefulness, usually after having fallen asleep at his desk, opened his eyes and tried to recall the words that had penetrated his slumber. Phryne was sitting bolt upright next to him, and it was clear that she at least was wide awake.

"The woman in the alleyway. Yvette Benot," she repeated. "She was with my ambulance unit when I first joined. But she left not long after. That was why I didn't recognise her; I barely knew her, and it was twelve years ago."

"Yvette Benot. Good. We'll know where to start in the morning." He relaxed back into the pillows, but opened his eyes again when Phryne remained sitting up.

"But what on earth was she doing in Poplar? And why did she want me to meet her?"

"In the morning, please, love?" he suggested, trying gently to tug her back down under the covers. Phryne was impetuous, he knew, but years of experience had taught him that there was usually nothing to be gained in a case like this by denying oneself much-needed rest. "That was a working neighbourhood: even if we went back right now, everyone'd be in bed and no-one'd thank us for waking them up. The police trampled that scene into the ground. There's nothing we can do now that we couldn't do better by daylight."

Phryne exhaled gustily. She hated it when Jack was right, especially when he was also being completely reasonable, but she couldn't deny that he had a point. Much better to go back in daylight and try to match whatever tenuous leads he might have garnered with her own vague recollections of a young French ambulance driver. Reluctantly, she let him draw her back under the covers where she might have tossed and turned for hours had he not pulled her into a loving, but rather firm, embrace until at last she relaxed and let sleep reclaim her.


	12. Adagio 1

_Author's Note: in this and subsequent chapters I have drawn extensively on Kerry Greenwood's original novel Murder in Montparnasse, which happens to be one of the few Phryne Fisher novels I've managed to locate in my local library. Where the book and the television show conflict I have, for the purposes of this fic, taken the television show as canon. Where history and fiction conflict (as in the true identity of the WWI heroine remembered in posterity as 'Toupie') I have allowed fiction to win._

...

 **Part Five: Adagio**

"She was with the unit when I first joined in 1917, but she left not long after."

"How long? Roughly?" Jack prompted. They had both woken early, and Phryne had pushed her hair out of her eyes and rung for coffee before reaching for a notepad and pen and beginning to dredge her memory for the least recollection of Yvette Benot.

She pondered for a moment. "Not long at all. A few weeks, perhaps a month? I barely remember her."

"Do you know what prompted her to leave?"

Phryne shook her head. "I'm not sure she would even have had a reason, beyond wanting to get away. She wouldn't have been the only one."

He nodded in understanding. How many men, including himself, might have done the same had the possibility of court-martial and a sentence of imprisonment or execution not stood to deter them? Lofty ideals like honour and duty had seemed of little consequence against the sheer raw hell their lives had become by 1917. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the women, like Phryne, who had served was that they would have faced no such punishment if they _had_ fled, and yet they had chosen to remain. He pushed the thoughts away with an inward shudder. Shellshock, he had told Phryne once, closed doors in one's mind, but that didn't necessarily mean that they would remain shut on their own when the past began knocking too insistently.

"Can you think of someone else who might know?" he asked instead, seeking to distract himself from the past by focussing on the present mystery. Phryne smiled at once as a pleasant thought occurred.

"Toupie," she replied decisively. "Or rather, 'The Honourable Barbara Lowther', though she'll always be Toupie to me. She has a flat in Knightsbridge; I've visited several times since I've been back. And I'm sure she'd be thrilled to meet you."

...

The Honourable Miss Barbara 'Toupie' Lowther was a solid, jolly woman in late middle-age whose Turkish-style men's clothing was less alarming than the solid embrace into which she pulled Phryne's fiancé before pushing him back to arm's length and scrutinising him with a gaze penetrating enough to border on the hostile.

"So what exactly are your intentions towards my Phryne?" she demanded, without preamble.

"Toupie, he's not René," Phryne drawled in a tone of amused warning. "I can assure you you're not going to need to hunt him down and make him eat his own genitalia."

"Well, that's a relief," the older woman replied, releasing him, with which sentiment Jack heartily concurred. She offered her hand as though the previous interaction hadn't occurred. "Toupie Lowther. Any friend of Phryne's is a friend of mine."

"Jack Robinson. I know you commanded Phryne's ambulance unit in the War; I take it you also knew her in Paris?"

"Toupie took me in after I left René," Phryne explained.

"Phryne tells me the bastard turned up in Melbourne and finally got what he long had owing."

"Monsieur Dubois has indeed shuffled off his mortal coil," Jack replied, unable to completely repress a smile of grim satisfaction. Phryne had cried out in her sleep just a few nights before, and he had caught Dubois' name amidst her muttered, panicky French before he had succeeded in rousing her enough that he could soothe her in his arms. No, he would never lament for René Dubois.

"But we didn't come here to talk about René," Phryne continued as they seated themselves in Toupie's comfortable armchairs. "Or so that you could put the hard word on Jack. Do you remember Yvette Benot?"

Toupie frowned slightly. "Vaguely, yes. She was with our unit, although she left before the Armistice."

"She's dead," Phryne stated briefly.

"Poor girl," Toupie shook her head sadly.

"I'm afraid her death was unnatural," Jack supplied. "It appears she was murdered." Toupie's brows went up.

"You don't say."

"She called at my flat yesterday and left a message asking me to meet her in Poplar last night. But she was killed in an alleyway before she could make the meeting. Throat slashed, handbag gone, and the police being utterly unhelpful. Did you know she was in London?"

Toupie shook her head. "I had no idea. As awful as it probably sounds, I hadn't thought of her in years. You may be the type to stick in the mind, Phryne darling, but I can't say the same about that wee country mouse." Her tone expressed affection and regret rather than scorn, and Jack leaned forward slightly.

"At this stage, anything you can tell us may help. The murder looks like a robbery gone wrong, but coming so soon after she attempted to meet with Phryne, we suspect something more sinister."

The older woman sighed and thought for a moment before speaking. "Well, as I say, she was a country mouse. Some small village in the Dordogne, I think, although I wouldn't swear to it. Farming stock: the farm girls were often the best. They were used to hard work and the sight of blood." She paused, and her expression turned bleak. "There was such a lot of blood."

For a short while all three sat in silence, each preoccupied with their own particular bloody recollections.

Toupie shook herself and continued. "She was pretty, too, in that French country way. Popular with the soldiers. God knows, we all wanted a bit of distraction. As for why she left, I wouldn't have a clue. She just came to me one day and said she needed to go home, and that was it. Packed her bags and hitched a ride on the next truck heading away from the lines."

"Is there anything else you can recall?" Jack asked. "The name of the village, anyone she was particularly close to?"

Toupie lifted a finger, indicating for them to wait, before rising and walking to the bookshelf. She lifted down a large volume and returned to them. "My photographs," she explained. She set the album down and turned a few pages. "Yes, here we go. The Third Ambulance Drivers, Belgium."

Phryne leaned forward eagerly. "I have a copy of this one back in Melbourne. You, me, Dolly, Adelie – this must have been after Yvette left."

Jack found himself staring across the years at a much younger Phryne, not as she appeared in the various artistic renderings of her which dotted her house in St. Kilda but captured in a photograph. She was thin, he thought, so very thin, as they had all become as the meagre war-time rations melted every spare ounce of flesh from their bones. Her hair was long, tied back in a bun or chignon of some kind, and she was dressed in army surplus that made her spare frame look thinner still. Her cheeks were hollow and her expression was unsmiling: the same haunted, fixed expression that he had seen on the faces that surrounded him in the trenches. It was the expression of someone who had endured too much horror, for too long, who now barely flinched at the sound of rifle-fire or shelling, but twitched almost imperceptibly when it was silent. He couldn't quite repress a shudder and reached out unconsciously, tearing his own haunted expression from the frozen image in the photograph to cast a desperate, reassuring glance at the living, breathing woman sitting next to him clad in immaculate couture and with at least another stone of flesh to fill out her delicious curves.

Phryne turned to meet her fiancé's gaze and, seeing his troubled expression, laid a reassuring hand over his.

"Jack," she said simply.

"You were so young." It wasn't what he wanted to say, but he couldn't find the words to express all that he was feeling.

"We all were," she replied.

Toupie watched their exchange in silence. This was indeed no René Dubois, with his sneering, supercilious attitude. She doubted that René had ever really registered the fact that Phryne – unlike him – was a decorated war hero; at least, not until the night he had administered one beating too many and she had responded by firing her service revolver into the wall behind his head. He had fled then, like the craven coward that he was, lurking in the shadows of Montparnasse until the collective rage of the Sapphic community had served to drive him away definitively. But neither did he resemble the frivolous, often-foolish men that she knew Phryne had favoured since. No, there was something different here, a depth of feeling and a sincerity coupled with an undeniable – and understandable – respect for just what La Petite Phryne was really capable of. Oh hell, she thought, they really are besotted with one another. Realising that if left to their own devices they might well sit there and stare at one another indefinitely, she cleared her throat.

"There were others, too, of course. Here's Colette Dupont – you'd remember her, I'm sure?" Phryne nodded. "Marie Laroux and Martine Clement. Emily MacDonald, she was Scottish, and Renée – what was her last name? – Moreau, that was it. Renée Moreau."

"Yes," Phryne's tone was distant as memory overwhelmed her. "I remember." She looked from the photographs back to Toupie. "You were all so kind to me. I remember – it didn't really register then, in the midst of it all, but I do remember. You were kinder to me than anyone had been in my entire life."

Toupie did not miss the glance that Jack Robinson sent Phryne's way at that, even if Phryne herself did. The poor man looked as though he wanted to wrap his lover in his arms and coddle her for the rest of his life. Which probably wouldn't be very long if he actually tried it. But, she reminded herself, this was the man who had taken to inviting Phryne into his murder investigations, so presumably the impulse to coddle her shamelessly would be a fleeting one.

...

They left Toupie's flat with a list of names of all the women who had served with the Third Ambulance Drivers between mid-1916 and the end of 1917. Sadly, the only one for whom Toupie had had any kind of contact details was Dolly Wilde, who was still living in Paris with Natalie Barney.

"I want to send a telegram to Dolly as soon as possible," Phryne told Jack.

"A good idea," he replied. "And then I think we should turn this information over to the police."

She arched a delicate eyebrow at that, knowing that that was all it would take to communicate to her lover just what a complete waste of time she regarded that particular course of action to be. "If you say so, although I can't think what good it will do."

"Probably very little," he admitted, "but I'd rather they were kindly disposed towards us, if possible, and withholding information isn't likely to advance that cause. As you know perfectly well," he added, earning himself a brief snort of laughter. Out here in the bustle of the busy Knightsbridge streets, with a living, breathing, healthy Phryne by his side and a case to work, the War was receding back into the depths of unpleasant memory. Where, as far as he was concerned, it could remain until doomsday.


	13. Adagio 2

Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews! I really appreciate the response this fic has received, especially since I introduced the crime thread, and I hope you enjoy the latest chapter.

* * *

"Dolly Wilde. As in, Oscar Wilde's niece?" Jack asked as they made their way from Toupie's flat to the nearest telegraph office.

"The very same."

"Huh." He was accustomed by now to the knowledge that Phryne was very well connected with a diverse cross-section of people, but it still seemed strange to him to know that she knew – had, indeed, served with – the relative of a notorious celebrity.

 _YVETTE BENOT FOUND DEAD EAST END LONDON. SUSPECT FOUL PLAY. ANYTHING YOU CAN RECALL ABOUT HER MAY HELP. PHRYNE FISHER._

"How likely is it that she'll remember something useful?" Jack asked. Phryne shrugged.

"Probably not very. Dolly's witty, charming, generous and devastatingly intelligent, but she's also more or less completely self-absorbed. Still, she's worth a shot. Now, I suppose we're headed for the police station?"

"We are indeed."

She rolled her eyes, but drove them obediently towards the Limehouse station. She wondered if Jack really understood just how different he was from the vast majority of his colleagues. She had been conducting investigations off and on long before she arrived in Melbourne, and he was the first officer who hadn't dismissed her completely out of hand.

"Can I help you?" the constable at the front desk asked as they walked through the main door of the plain brick building.

"We're here about a murder that was committed in Poplar last night," Jack began. "I'm Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, of the Victorian Constabulary in Australia, and this is my fiancée, the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, a private investigator. We were at the scene and have information that we believe may be pertinent to the investigation."

"I'll fetch my sergeant, sir."

The sergeant, when he appeared, was a man of middle years with a slightly stooped carriage and a world-weary expression. "I understand you have some information for me, sir," he began. "Perhaps you'd like to join me in an interview room." He turned an indulgent smile on Phryne. "The lady can wait out here. I'm sure the constable can fetch her a cup of tea."

"The lady is the one with the information," Jack replied coldly, when Phryne indicated with her silence and an impatient roll of her eyes that the sergeant's attitude justified her assertion that this was a complete waste of time, and therefore she wasn't even going to dignify his patronising words with a response.

The sergeant looked nonplussed. "Uh, well, in that case I suppose she'd better join us."

"Are you going to ask my fiancé to wait out here?" she asked archly.

"Of course not, Miss. He'll be with you the whole time." Which was probably just as well, Jack thought, because Phryne's expression at that particular bit of paternalistic nonsense indicated that if she were left alone in a room with this man there was a chance only one of them would walk out alive, and it wouldn't be the sergeant.

"Now, what did you want to tell me?" Sergeant Cooper, Phryne thought, was an idiot, and the frustrating part was that his idiocy appeared to include an incurable need to treat _her_ like an idiot, too.

"A woman was found dead in an alleyway between Sturry Street and Kerbey Street at eight o'clock last night," she began, enunciating each word slowly and clearly.

"That's right, Miss," Cooper said in a soothing tone, "and it's a terrible thing to have happened, but I can assure you we're doing everything in our power to locate the murderer, and we will do so. You're perfectly safe."

"Does 'everything in your power' include shutting up and listening to potential witnesses when they come forward?" This time her words were as sharp as the crack of a whip, and Cooper started visibly and opened his mouth. "No, don't answer that. Your murder victim's name was Yvette Benot, and she was a French citizen. I've no idea what she was doing in Poplar, or how long she'd been in England, but in 1917 she served with the French Women's Third Ambulance Unit in Belgium, under the command of the Honourable Miss Barbara Lowther." She paused and flicked her eyes meaningfully to the blank page of the notebook above which Cooper's pen still hovered. "Did you get all that?" she enquired pointedly.

Cooper shot her a look of bemused dislike, and Jack could see him debating internally whether to swallow his pride and accept the help of this uppity piece of posh skirt, or salve it by brushing her words aside. A man who cared about solving the case and had the courage of his convictions would have done the former. Cooper chose the latter.

"The victim's name was Evie Bennet. She had a bit of an accent but she spoke English well enough. She hadn't been in the neighbourhood long, and we're still trying to trace her family. As for 'French Ambulance Units', do you really think a skinny little thing like that would have been any use at all in the middle of a war? It's like thinking you yourself could have served."

Jack froze, tense, wondering how on earth he was going to ensure that Phryne left through the front door and not via a trip to the cells, but he needn't have worried; although her eyes flashed dangerously she took a deep breath and collected herself.

"In that case, might I at least request that Mademoiselle Benot – Miss Bennet's – body be released to us when the coroner has finished with it? I'd like to see to it that she receives a decent burial."

"I'm sorry, Miss," Cooper replied, sounding anything but, "but I'm afraid that won't be possible. You've no proof of your connection to this woman, so I can't let you have the body. If we can't locate her family then the necessary arrangements will be made."

It was standard procedure, they both knew, but the sergeant managed to make it feel like a piece of gratuitous meanness. Phryne rose in what Jack recognised as a dangerously high temper and lifted her handbag and gloves primly from the table.

"Well, Sergeant, it appears you have everything under control. I apologise for wasting your time."

She didn't need to cock her head at Jack for him to rise too, and she met his eye as he opened the door for her. It was obvious that he too was irritated by the sergeant's attitude, and that alone was enough to ameliorate her own anger, at least a little. Whether Jack was in her pocket or she was in Jack's might be debatable at this point, but what was not debatable was that for now at least his 'professional association' with her clearly trumped any sense of loyalty to a fellow officer as pompous and idiotic as Sergeant Cooper. There was a certain vicious satisfaction in that thought.

"A word, sir?" Cooper asked, before Jack could follow her from the room.

Phryne rolled her eyes. "I'll wait in the foyer," she told him, her heels clicking briskly as she headed in that direction. "I think I'll forgo the tea, though," she added over her shoulder. "There's a foul taste in my mouth and I feel the need for something stronger." Jack turned back to Cooper.

"Well, Sergeant?" he snapped with enough authority to give the man pause before he shook himself visibly.

"You ain't an Inspector here, sir, so I'll thank you not to take that tone with me. And your fiancée has evidently been reading a few too many detective novels. If I were you, sir, I'd take her home, get her maid to fetch her a nice cup of tea, and put her to work planning the wedding. Dresses. Flowers. That style of thing. Women like it, and it'll distract her from troubling that pretty head of hers with things she can't possibly understand. Miss Bennet's murder was just a robbery that went wrong, nothing more. Take her mind off things until she forgets about it, that's my advice. And if she tries to convince you to come back here, I'd appreciate it if you'd encourage her not to."

Jack waited with growing disgust for the man to finish. "I can assure you, Sergeant, that that won't be a problem," he replied tartly. He turned to go, but couldn't resist adding a few thoughts of his own. "If it was a robbery, why was she attacked from behind? And what robber would risk hanging over the few shillings a woman like that would likely be carrying? Hum?" He paused long enough to be satisfied that the sergeant had no answer to either of those questions before going in search of Phryne. Had he ever been that bigoted, he wondered? Certainly, he had disliked and attempted to discourage her intervention in his cases at first, but that had been because she was a civilian, and a loose cannon, not specifically because she was a woman. No, he reminded himself, he had recognised her intelligence from the very start, when she had identified the cause of John Andrews' death as poison based on nothing more than his time of death and a shakily-drawn chalk outline. His problem had been with her behaviour, not with her sex.

"What did the dear Sergeant want?" Phryne asked as they stepped back out onto the street.

"For me to take you home and distract you from unsuitable topics like murder with tea and pretty dresses," he replied, earning a snort of disgust. "But, if it's all the same to you, I thought we might go search the victim's rooms instead."

He glanced down at her, a small smile tugging at his lips, and was gratified when she hugged his arm and smiled up at him. "Jack Robinson. You know how to show a girl a good time."


	14. Adagio 3

It wasn't far to the scene of the previous night's murder, so they left the car outside the police station and walked to Yvette's lodgings, Jack whistling with uncharacteristic boyishness as they made their way along Pennyfields to Poplar High Street. It took Phryne a moment to recognise the tune as What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and a moment more to remember the irreverent lyrics fitted to it by weary and disillusioned soldiers seeking an outlet for the frustration they felt with their NCOs.

'...No more sergeants bawling  
'Pick it up' and 'put it down'.  
If I meet the ugly bastard  
I'll kick his arse all over town.'

She turned her face away so he wouldn't see just how amused she was. Whatever Sergeant Cooper had said in that brief private word had evidently been enough to get Jack thoroughly riled up.

"So," he broke off as they turned off East India Dock Road and approached the building where Yvette Benot had apparently lived. "How do you want to go about this? I'm reluctant to give Sergeant Cooper the satisfaction of arresting me for impersonating a police officer, but a break-in at this time of day might be unwise."

"I was thinking we could just bribe the landlord," Phryne replied.

He nodded. "I shall bow to your superior knowledge and experience in matters pertaining to the circumvention of due legal process," he remarked, and they exchanged a quick smile before he pulled his notepad from his pocket and turned to the relevant page. "We're looking for a Harry Wilkins, landlord." He pointed. "Higgins indicated that he owned that building."

By daylight Mr. Wilkins' establishment looked, if anything, even more run-down and disreputable than it had the night before. It was clean enough, but with the kind of desperate cleanliness that came with inhabitants who were both too poor to let anything which might have even a shred of use left in it go to waste and too proud to let any hint of dirt indicate that their standards had slipped.

"Excuse me," Phryne asked a thin, worn-looking woman clothed in an equally thin and worn-looking dress and cardigan who was scrubbing the step. The woman stopped and brushed a strand of hair from her face with a work-reddened hand, regarding the pair warily.

"Can I help you?"

"We were looking for Mr. Wilkins."

"He's inside. First door on the left."

"Thank you."

Harry Wilkins was also lean, but with the wiry, rat-like leanness and mean eyes of the born bastard, whatever his parents' actual marital status may have been at the time.

"I already told the rozzers everything I knew. Evie Bennet, come from nowhere, works who knows where, and two weeks behind with her rent."

"In that case, I imagine the sooner you can let the room again the better," Phryne remarked sweetly. "Did the police happen to mention when that might be?"

"They had a look around and said I could do as I please. Nothing there to interest them. Sylvie's going to clear it out when she's done with the steps. Sylvie!" he added, raising his voice to a bawl. A frightened head poked around the front door.

"Yes, Mr. Wilkins?"

"Hurry up with those steps so you can clean that foreign tart's room out for me."

"She was prostituting herself then?" Phryne asked, jumping on the word tart. Wilkins snorted.

"If she had been, she might have had the money for the rent."

"Well, as to that," Phryne remarked. "As it happens I'm an old friend of Yvette's. I'd hate to think that she'd left any debts in her wake, so... would five pounds cover what's owing, do you think? And we'd be only too happy to take her possessions off your hands as well. For sentimental reasons."  
Wilkins licked his lips greedily as he regarded the notes that had appeared in Phryne's hand, then plucked them suddenly and stuffed them hastily into a back pocket.

"Just her personals, mind you. The furniture stays with the room."

"Of course," Phryne responded, keeping to the same sweet, airy tone that indicated that there was nothing unusual about her behaviour, nothing to see here, Officer. Jack had paid the odd informant in his time, but he was aware that he was witnessing a master in action and paid careful attention. Knowing Phryne, there might well be a test later.

"Sylvie!" The woman appeared again. "Leave off that scrubbing, woman, and show these two up to Miss Bennet's room. They're going to clean out her effects, since you're too lazy to get your arse up there."

He reached around the door-frame and retrieved a key which he held out to Sylvie. She took it from him as though she expected him to bite. Perhaps she did. Wilkins disappeared back into his rooms, and Sylvie led the way up the stairs. The interior, like the exterior, was battered and threadbare but still desperately, heartlessly clean.

"It's this one." Sylvie's hands trembled slightly as she fitted the key to the lock on a door on the third floor.

"Thank you," Phryne said, then continued as though it didn't really matter. "Did you know Evie, by any chance? We were old friends, and it's been a long time."

Sylvie nodded. "I knew her, Miss, but I don't know how you did." At the slight look of alarm on Phryne's face she shook her head hastily. "Oh, don't worry Miss, I won't say anything. I don't want trouble."

"No, no," Phryne held her hands up soothingly. "None of us want any trouble. She was a very old friend, and I'd almost forgotten her until I heard from her yesterday. Now she's dead... anything you know may help." This time it was not notes she offered but coins, a handful of shillings that Sylvie accepted hesitantly before clutching them tightly to her scrawny bosom with a furtive glance around.

"She was in the workhouse, Miss, for years and years. Then they decided they didn't have any use for her anymore, so they paid her a few pounds and sent her away. That's how she ended up here."

"The workhouse!" Phryne's whisper was horrified. "Which one?"

"The Poplar workhouse, Miss, on High Street." She shuddered. "You can't miss it."

"Were you there too?"

Another frightened shake of the head. "No, Miss. I was lucky."

A lifetime of starvation, Phryne thought, and working for a brute like Wilkins, but still she felt herself lucky because she'd escaped the clutches of the workhouse. She met Jack's eye and wondered what he was thinking, whether he knew that Phryne herself might well have faced the same fate had her father's sudden elevation not intervened to spare her.

Whether Sylvie guessed anything of Phryne's thoughts was doubtful, but she cast another nervous glance back down the stairs which Phryne understood perfectly.

"You'd better get back. We wouldn't want to give him another reason to yell at you."

That earned her a small, bitter smile. "He never needs a reason, Miss." But she hesitated, wearing an expression that Jack recognised only too well.

"I... don't suppose you know anything else that might be helpful to us?" he asked gently.

Sylvie licked her lips anxiously and leaned closer. "There was a man came round asking for her a couple of times. Evie wouldn't talk about him, but I recognised him. Sid Evans. He's an officer at the workhouse."

Jack nodded to show he understood. "Sid Evans. Thank you."

Wilkins' voice echoed up the stairs and Sylvie jumped and gasped as though she'd been struck. "I'm sorry, I gotta..." And she was gone.

Phryne and Jack found themselves standing in the doorway of a small room. To their left a bench with a spirit stove, a wash-pan and a jug of water formed the kitchen. To their right a single bed stretched the width of the room, the head against the far wall and a small set of drawers beside it. There were a few hooks beneath a shelf by the door. A small table with a single chair beneath the lone window opposite completed the sparse furnishings. A single bare bulb hung above them. There was no rug on the floor. No pictures hung on the walls. But in a cracked pot on the windowsill, Yvette Benot had managed to coax a small rosemary plant into growing.

"Do you want to start with her drawers?" Jack suggested. "I'll do the kitchen cupboard."

The drawers yielded very little. A Bible, very new, stamped with the name of a local mission society. A bank book, showing an initial deposit of six pounds a few months earlier, progressively whittled away to nothing. A pawnbroker's receipt for a sewing machine, dated two weeks prior, and a woman's dress, dated just a few days before. A single needle and an almost-gone spool of thread. The stub of a pencil. A much-darned pair of stockings and a worn pair of knickers which appeared to be the only spare items of clothing that Yvette Benot had had left.

"Look beneath the mattress," Jack suggested as he methodically searched the top of the kitchen cupboard before emptying it. A single pot. A single plate, cup, spoon, and once-sharp knife. No fork. Two matches in an otherwise-empty book. The drying heel of a loaf of bread. Two small, withered onions. Some salt, a tiny knob of lard and a handful of dried peas, still in the paper bags in which they had been purchased. A couple of teaspoons of ground coffee, also in a paper bag, presumably the dead woman's last, carefully-hoarded luxury. She would never get to enjoy even that now.

"There's nothing." Phryne laid her few finds on the table as Jack checked the bare shelf above the four empty hooks. "What's this?"

It was a copy of a newspaper from three days before, folded open to the society page, and Phryne found herself staring at a picture of her and Jack together, taken when they had attended a dinner party at the Ritz. She was dressed in a pale dress that shimmered with sequins even in the grainy newspaper image. Jack was holding the door of the Rolls open for her. 'The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher with her antipodean mystery man', began the caption.

Jack snorted and decided not to bother read any further. "The engagement announcement was published weeks ago. I'm hardly that much of a mystery. But at least we know what prompted her to get in touch with you." He paused for a moment. "Is it possible she was simply seeking financial assistance?" he asked. "She was evidently in dire straits; perhaps all she wanted was enough money to settle the rent, put a hot meal in her stomach, and head back to France."

Phryne considered this for a moment, then shook her head. "If she wanted to go back to France she would have left when she had the sewing machine and the money from the workhouse. And if all she wanted was assistance, why didn't she wait for me or leave her name when she called at the house? And why did she end up dead in an alleyway just a few hours later? It doesn't add up, Jack. There's something else going on here, I'm certain of it."

He nodded. "I agree, the whole thing just seems too coincidental to be coincidence at all. We'll continue to treat it as suspicious until we can determine otherwise." He raised his hands in a gesture of futility, indicating just how little they had managed to determine so far.

...

They left most of Yvette's personal effects, including the food, with a pathetically-grateful Sylvie, but Jack kept the bible and the newspaper tucked into an inner pocket of his coat, while Phryne carried the rosemary plant in its pot. The pawnbroker's tickets and bank-book were in her handbag as they made their way to the workhouse via the alleyway in which Yvette had died.

"It's easy to see what she was doing here," Jack remarked, as they stared at the spot, already washed clean, where her body had lain. "It's the most direct route from her lodgings to the cafe."

"And the one spot where she was vulnerable," Phryne added. "Both streets were busy; you remember, Jack, we made that circuit of the block."

He nodded. "I do." He sighed and straightened from his crouched position. "There's nothing more to see here, Phryne. We may as well go see what they can tell us at the workhouse."

* * *

The song Jack is whistling is the anonymous, but at the time highly popular, WWI song 'When This Bloody War is Over'.


	15. Adagio 4

The Poplar Workhouse might have become the Poplar Institution, but the change in name had produced no change in the grim, forbidding facade, and Phryne found herself clutching Jack's arm just a little bit tighter as they knocked and awaited admission. The workhouses had always practiced strict segregation, of men from women and of children from adults, and the recollection of this fact was enough for her survival instincts to begin overriding her rationality. Not for anything would she allow herself to be separated from Jack on such terms. He glanced down at her and gave her a reassuring smile and a quick squeeze of the arm.

"Calm down, Phryne. We're only here for information." She nodded, unable to frame a suitable response, and he realised a little distraction was in order. Leaning closer, he murmured in her ear. "I'm getting hungry. Perhaps after this we can return to your flat for a little... refreshment."

The sensation of his warm breath against her ear and the gentle insinuation of his tone had its intended effect and she leaned into him as she replied. "That sounds like an excellent suggestion."

The reception area was attended by a large, grim-faced female porter dressed in a serviceable green women's suit and bearing the indefinable air of a gaoler. "Can I help you?"

"Jack Robinson. This is Miss Phryne Fisher, private detective. We're seeking information on a former inmate as part of an investigation and were wondering whether we might speak with the Master."

The porter raised an eyebrow. "Are you with the police?"

"Not exactly. Miss Fisher had a personal connection to the woman in question, who's now dead. We're merely trying to ascertain her movements in the months preceding her demise. Her name was Yvette Benot, although she may be recorded here as Evie Bennet."

The woman gave him a hard stare, then shrugged as though it didn't much matter to her. "Wait here."

She returned a few moments later accompanied by a large man with dyed black hair, a slightly red nose, and a somewhat pompous air.

"James Chapman, I'm the Master here. What can I do for you?"

"Jack Robinson, this is the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher. We're seeking information on a former inmate, who regrettably passed away last night under suspicious circumstances."

Chapman waved them towards his office. "Yes, Evie Bennet. I can't say I remember her personally, but we are rather a large institution. Do you happen to know when she was admitted?"

"Some time in late 1917 or early 1918, we believe."

He reached for a ledger on the shelf behind his desk. The thud as it struck the desk reverberated like the crack of doom, but he thumbed through it with apparent unconcern. "Hmmm. Somewhat before my time: I only took over last year. Yes, here we go. December 1917, Evie Bennet, female, about 20. A case of moral laxity."

"'Moral laxity'? What does that mean?" Phryne asked.

The Master hesitated, looking at Jack, who gestured for him to answer. "Means she was in the family way. Let's see, yes, delivered of a son in January 1918. Named him George." He sniffed. "Nice to see a foreigner showing a bit of patriotism."

"A child?" Phryne was forgetting her fear in the excitement of discovery. "Where is he now?"

A few more pages. "He died in the infants' ward a few months later. Fever."

Jack touched Phryne's hand in an expression of condolence. "But his mother survived, and left the Institute at some point. Can you tell us when, or why?"

Chapman spoke with great dignity. "We're a relief institution, Mr. Robinson, not a prison, and this is the twentieth century. Inmates can discharge themselves whenever they choose, and when an inmate is considered a suitable candidate for out-relief they're encouraged to do so. Miss Bennet was discharged in April this year." He frowned slightly. "Moral laxity or not, I don't know why we didn't put her out sooner. She was able-bodied and smart enough. No need to keep her here at other people's expense when she could have been out working for a living like the rest of us."

"So she was held here for over ten years, lost her child in this place, and then she was thrown out onto the street with nothing?" Phryne demanded.

"Of course not. As I mentioned, we are not a prison. And when she did choose to leave she received-" there was a pause while another ledger was referred to "- eight pounds nine shillings, a change of clothing, and a new sewing machine, plus a referral to a position as a char-woman." He fixed Phryne with a challenging glare. "That's more than many people get in this life."

Jack spoke before Phryne could. "Can you tell us who the position was with?"

Chapman looked at the page again and answered with a shake of his head. "It doesn't say."

Phryne opened her mouth to speak, incensed by the man's callous attitude, but Jack laid a quick hand over hers and spoke first. "Someone mentioned that an officer from the Institute had been to visit her several times. A Sid Evans. Is it possible for us to speak with him?"

Chapman shrugged again. "If you'd like to wait in the reception area I'll have someone fetch him."

...

Sid Evans was a large man who seemed to prove Mr. Darwin's assertion that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. In Evans' case, it might have been relatively recently.

"I were worried about her, that's all. Just wanted to see she were alright."

"And what did you do when you discovered she wasn't?" Phryne asked.

"Not much I could do, seeings as she wouldn't have anything to do with me. What, you think I did something to her?"

"Are you always so concerned about former inmates?" Jack countered. "Or only the female ones with a history of 'moral laxity'?"

"'Ere now!"

"Well?" Phryne's tone was icy.

"Well I never laid a hand on her, and you can ask anyone here and they'd tell you the same." His lip curled in a sneer. "I don't care what they say about French girls, I can do better than an old scrag like that."

"So you looked in on her out of the goodness of your heart?" Jack asked in the light tone he used when he knew perfectly well that what he was suggesting was a complete fabrication. But Evans only folded his arms across his chest and stared straight back at him.

"That's right. And even if I didn't, you ain't a copper, so what's it to you?"

...

"'The goodness of his heart'?" Phryne repeated as they walked back to the car. "He's obviously hiding something."

"You could have tried bribing him?" Jack suggested, but Phryne shook her head.

"It wouldn't have worked."

"How do you know?" He was curious. She hadn't hesitated to offer a bribe to Wilkins.

She sighed, trying to put it into words. "He was too closed in. He wasn't dropping any hints. A person who wants a bribe will insinuate that they have information, and they'll sort of lean in, try to get close to you. Evans was keeping his distance. Or they'll start talking about expenses and costs, the way Wilkins did. No," she shook her head. "Bribery wouldn't have gotten us anywhere with Mr. Evans."

"Which suggests he had something to hide that he wasn't about to tell us."

"Or that someone else already has him too well paid – or too scared – to talk. Either way, Sid's a dead end for now."

...

It had been a long morning that had already become afternoon, and they were both feeling drained. The squalid reality of Yvette Benot's life – her long years in the workhouse grieving for her son and struggling to learn enough English to understand and, perhaps, make herself understood, followed by her final months as Mr. Wilkins' tenant and the grim promise of a pauper's grave – had left a deep impression on them both. They pulled up in Kensington in near-silence and walked hand-in-hand to the door.

"Mr. Page?" Phryne called out as Jack hung his coat.

"Yes, Miss?" The butler appeared almost immediately, and she handed him the rosemary plant.

"Take good care of this; it's special to me. Could you have Mrs. Page whip us up some lunch? Something hot. And bring us some tea in the parlour."

"Of course, Miss." As he could see the Inspector was helping his mistress with her coat, the butler headed back to the kitchen at once, taking the treasured rosemary plant with him.

Upstairs, Phryne flung herself down in an armchair, rubbing her brow in an attitude of dejection. Jack seated himself opposite her with marginally more decorum but the same air of defeat.

"At least now we know why she left your unit," he remarked. "A war zone is hardly the place to bear a child. But what on earth possessed her to come all the way to England?"

"A desire to get as far away from the fighting as possible?" Phryne suggested. "I've never been a mother, but I'd go to the ends of the earth to keep Jane safe."

"Mmm." Jack's tone was doubtful. "But surely she had to consider how she'd provide for the child when she got here. How much English could a French country girl have spoken? And what would she do for a living?"

They pondered in silence for a moment, until Phryne lifted her head as an idea struck. "Jack! What if she was following the father of her child? We met plenty of British soldiers; what if he'd been wounded and invalided back to Blighty?"

"Apres la guerre finie  
Soldat anglais parti;" Jack quoted, wartime rhymes clearly still much in his mind.  
"Mam'selle Fransay boko pleuray  
Apres la guerre finie."

"Apres la guerre finie," Phryne took up in her perfectly-accented French,  
"Soldat anglais parti;  
Mademoiselle in the family way,  
Apres la guerre finie."

"And we both know how the poem ends," Jack added, and they finished together:

"Apres la guerre finie,  
Soldat anglais parti;  
Mademoiselle can go to hell  
Apres la guerre finie."

"I'd say she found a pretty good facsimile of hell, at least," Phryne remarked, as her housekeeper arrived with a tea-tray. "Thank you, Mrs. Page."

"You're welcome, Miss," she replied in her motherly way. "Lunch will be ready soon."

"Thank you." Mrs. Page left, and Phryne poured tea. "Why the workhouse, though?" she wondered aloud. "Yvette was almost certainly Catholic, and as awful as the Magdalenes are, they still have to be better than that. At least they make some effort to keep the children alive."

"'You who would feast us paupers/What of my murdered wife!'" Jack quoted, reaching further back in history this time for a poem that adequately expressed his sentiments. "Could that be what she was killed for? If she confronted someone she held accountable for the death of her child, Sid Evans perhaps..."

"The workhouse does a thorough job of beating that kind of defiance out of you," Phryne replied, shaking her head. "Sometimes literally. I doubt she was in much better state than Sylvie after more than a decade in that place. You heard what she said about the way Yvette reacted to Evans. If she'd seen him or anyone else she recognised she'd more likely have run a mile than risked confronting them. And I doubt she'd have had enough spirit left by the time she got out of there to make the kind of enemies who assassinate people in alleyways. Which means either the police are right and we're wasting our time, or this has something to do with her life before she went into that place." She narrowed her eyes. "We need to locate the father of her child."

"Easier said than done," Jack observed. "Even assuming he had an address somewhere in the East End at the time, hundreds of men from the area must have served – maybe thousands. You don't need conscription when the army offers the possibility of escaping from a life of hard labour and barely scraping by on the docks. We need to talk to some of the people who knew her in France, the women Toupie mentioned."

"Yes, but how? It's not as if we have a list of addresses."

They sipped their tea in silence as they thought, until a sudden idea caused Jack to straighten in his seat.

"Didn't you mention once that you receive a French war pension?" he asked. Phryne's eyes brightened as she followed his train of thought, and she nodded eagerly. "We know that Yvette wasn't – maybe she didn't know about them, or perhaps she was disqualified for some reason – but the other women you served with probably are. Which means that somewhere in France there's an office full of people who know where to send that money each month."

"Which means they should have the current address of every woman on Toupie's list," Phryne finished. She jumped to her feet and crossed the gap between them, kissing Jack soundly on his now-smiling lips. "Jack. You are brilliant."

* * *

 **Endnotes**

'Apres la guerre finie' is an anonymous poem in soldiers' franglais. Roughly translated: 'After the war is over/the English soldier will leave/the French girl will cry a lot/after the war is over. After the war is over/the English soldier will leave/the French girl will be pregnant/after the war is over. After the war is over/the English soldier will leave/the French girl can go to hell/after the war is over.'

'You who would feast us paupers/What of my murdered wife!' is the climactic verse of 'In The Workhouse: Christmas Day' by George R. Sims, which is a typical work of 19th and early 20th-century parlour poetry, intended for memorisation and recitation particularly by the children of the middle classes. Often moralistic in nature, they include such well-known (and often-parodied) works as 'Casabianca' (better known by its first line, 'The boy stood on the burning deck'), 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', 'The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere' and Kipling's 'If', which Jack was reflecting on as he first arrived at Phryne's door. I can just picture a young Jack eagerly pleasing his parents and their friends with his recitations whilst imbibing the moral instruction embedded within them.

Law changes in 1929 and 1930 signalled the end of the centuries-old English institution of workhouses, but it took over a decade to fully disassemble the structures and reintegrate often-institutionalised former inmates back into society. In the 1950s and 60s some former workhouses were repurposed as rest-homes for the aged, and a few operated as night shelters and the like into the 1980s and 1990s. By the 1940s, however, the era of the workhouse was effectively over.


	16. Presto 1

**Part Six: Presto**

As tragic as Yvette Benot's death was, Jack reflected as he sat in Phryne's study a couple of hours later, it could not be denied that it had opened the door back into an aspect of their relationship that had been closed ever since she had left Melbourne. He loved Phryne, loved her dearly, and quite possibly loved her more with each passing day, but their relationship had been forged in the intense crucible of murder investigations, and without the working side of their lives there had been an indefinable sense that something was missing.

And, he thought, remembering how they had first met, this particular investigation had in many ways brought them full circle. He couldn't help but smile now as he recalled the first time he had ever heard her voice. "This lavatory is fully occupied," she had called as he endeavoured to evict her from his crime-scene, and a moment later he had been staring at a beautiful, exotic creature whose appearance at a murder scene was as incongruous as that of a jester at a funeral, whilst trying to ignore the way her subtle perfume tickled his nose and her not-so-subtle flirtations piqued his interest. His crime-scene in his city, and now here they were in a city that was far more hers than his working a murder that he would not have known about were it not for Phryne. Had the victim been an old acquaintance of his, and had she now been the police officer, the symmetry would have been perfect.

He shook his head, exasperated with himself. He had no business romanticising a murder investigation, even if Phryne might well agree with his sentiments, and he turned his attention firmly back to the notes he was writing up. It wasn't a report, since he had no-one to report to, but rather a record which they could refer back to later. Phryne had supplied him with all he needed – paper, manila folders, envelopes, ink for his pen, and a place to work – and all that was missing was Collins on the front desk. Instead Phryne was manning (or 'womanning'? he wondered, making a mental note to ask her later whether such a word even existed) the telephone, and he could hear her through the open door speaking French as she attempted to convince whoever was currently on the other end of the line to provide her with the information they needed. Of course, that meant that he couldn't call out to his senior constable for a cup of tea, and he was just considering rising and going in search of one when Mrs. Page arrived bearing a tray.

"I thought you might appreciate this, Inspector," she said, placing a cup of tea accompanied by two biscuits on the desk beside him.

"Uh, thank you, Mrs. Page, that is indeed much appreciated." How, he wondered, had she known?

"You're most welcome, sir."

He ate as he wrote, and was interrupted again a few moments later by the arrival of her husband, bearing his silver salver.

"A telegram, Inspector. Miss Fisher indicated I should bring it to you."

"Thank you."

"Very good, sir."

It was from Dolly Wilde, and as Phryne had directed her butler to bring it to him he felt no compunction about reading it.

' _SO SORRY DARLING NO RECOLLECTION YVETTE BENOT. VERY TRAGIC WILL DRINK TO HER MEMORY. DOLLY'_

Well, he thought, carefully logging the telegram and adding it to the file along with the newspaper and other documents from Yvette's lodgings, that was one enquiry down.

He was still writing when Phryne appeared and threw herself down into an armchair in exactly the same manner with which she had often flung herself into the chair opposite his desk when she was impatient or otherwise dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. He finished the sentence he was writing and turned to face her.

"So I take it you had no luck with Paris?"

"Ugh." She rolled her eyes, arms tightly folded. "They're refusing to tell us anything over the telephone without a telegram from Scotland Yard."

"Well, we're not likely to get that." He retrieved Dolly Wilde's message from the folder and passed it to her. She read it and passed it back.

"Marvellous. We're run out of leads, the police won't help us, and we may know an awful lot about how Yvette lived but we're no closer to finding out who killed her or why she died." She sighed, and they sat in silence for a few moments pondering the apparent intractability of their case.

"You said they won't give you information over the 'phone," Jack began slowly, unable to believe what he was about to suggest.

Phryne made a gesture of disgust. "No-one does bureaucracy quite like the French."

"Exactly how badly damaged is your plane?"

...

"It ain't exactly damaged at all," the mechanic, Joe Griffiths, informed them as they walked across the airfield the next day. Jack carried a valise in each hand and they were dressed for flight. "Once she's up she'll stay up, no problem. The problem is getting her up there."

"You still haven't figured out what's wrong with the starter system, then?" Phryne asked.

"No, Miss, and we've had the whole thing apart several times, cleaned and checked the lot, replaced anything that even looked like it needed replacing... it's a mystery, I'm afraid, Miss. That's why I advised you against taking her back to Australia. She lets you down in the middle of Bongo-Bongo Land you're liable to end up stuck. Paris should be safe enough, though." He eyed the Australian gentleman who was carrying their luggage. "Romantic weekend, is it then, Miss?"

"Weekend?" Phryne couldn't quite hide her alarm. Had she really lost track of time that completely? Every office in Paris closed completely on Friday afternoon and wouldn't open again before Monday for anything short of the end of the world, and quite possibly not even that. But now that she thought about it, of course today was Friday.

"We can always pursue other avenues until Monday," Jack remarked, apparently unperturbed. "Perhaps there might even be time for you to show me some of your old haunts." She looked up and saw him smiling invitingly at her. How on earth did this man know just what to say to calm her down so thoroughly? Suddenly those two days in Paris waiting for the offices to reopen looked less like an unwelcome delay and more like a welcome opportunity, and she felt her lips curving into a smile.

"Well, I'm not too sure what you'll make of Montparnasse," she replied, "but I'm sure Veronique would be pleased to see us. And of course you'll want to visit the sights."

They had reached the plane by now, and she showed Jack where to stow their bags. Even after having seen her off with her father all those months ago he would never have thought it possible for Phryne to travel this light, and yet in spite of how little they had packed their cases barely fitted in the small storage compartment. Phryne mounted the plane over the wing and he followed her as Joe headed to the propeller.

"Is now a good time to mention that I've never actually been up in one of these things before?" he called back to her as he eased himself into the forward cockpit and fumbled with the hat and goggles. Up until now he had been more focussed on the possibility of making progress on their case than on the precise mechanics of how they would go about making it, but now that the moment of departure had arrived he was suddenly very aware of just how nervous he was.

His words made Phryne's heart jump. No, she had never considered that possibility, but now that she thought about it when on Earth would Jack have ever had the opportunity to fly? "Just try to stay calm," she called back to him. "If you panic and start thrashing around it interferes with the balance. And if you're going to throw up I'd appreciate it if you tried to get it over the side." She leaned forward and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "You'll be just fine, Jack; London to Paris is an easy run." She flicked the ignition. "Contact!"

Joe wrenched the propeller around hard. The engine seemed to catch, but then died. He tried again without success, then leaned around the plane to catch Phryne's eye and shook his head apologetically. "Sorry, Miss. Switch off and we'll run through again."

The delay as Joe and Phryne once again prepared the engine to start did Jack's nerves no good whatsoever, but after the second cry of "contact" the engine caught, Joe ducked neatly under to pull away the chocks, and suddenly they were bouncing down the runway, surely going far too slowly to ever become airborne, surely this wasn't going to work, they were going to crash and quite possibly die... he pressed his eyes shut and waited for the inevitable.

"Please, dear God, don't let me die. I know I'm not a religious man, I'm not even a very good one, and I know I'm divorced but you can't blame me she wanted to leave she's better off without me. And I'm sorry for all the wrong I've done all the sins I've committed except the ones with Phryne I'm sorry but I can't be sorry for those but I do love her more than anything and I am going to make an honest woman of her and surely I get points for that because it's not like she's an easy person to make an honest woman of-" Oh, dear God, had they left the ground? The bouncing seemed to have stopped and in its place was a sort of sinking sensation, as though his stomach were trying to press its way down through his intestines and out through the floor of his pelvis.

"Open your eyes, Jack!" Phryne called to him, and he cautiously obeyed, keeping his gaze firmly fixed just in front of him, on the edge of the cockpit.

"How did you know I had them closed?" he called back, and heard her chuckle.

"Lucky guess. Take a look around; isn't it glorious?"

Cautiously, remembering her warning about the destabilising effects of abrupt movement, he turned his head and peered over the edge. Beneath them the world was falling away, a patchwork of greens and browns, the city and the country, the Thames wending like a blue-grey snake, glittering here and there as it caught the sun, vehicles like children's toys, like ants, individual people too small to be seen as the air rushed around them and the plane throbbed with raw man-made power beneath them, and he caught his breath. Was this how God saw the world, he wondered? A thing of beauty and order, the squalor and messiness and frenzy of individual human life stripped away, a world that was good, very good, and a people who might, perhaps, be better too if they could only see the world like this? He knew, intuitively although he had never consciously considered it before this moment, that were Phryne to take him up over Europe, over the place where France met Germany, say, or Italy met Austria, it would be impossible to see where one ended and the other began.

He had veered from death to life in a matter of moments and couldn't help but wonder, in the part of his mind that almost always sat slightly apart in detached observation, whether he was having a religious experience. "'When once you have tasted flight,'" he murmured to himself, "'you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.'"

He had once used those words to call Phryne a whore, lashing out in hurt and jealousy at the sight of her obviously naked beneath Compton's coat, and a part of him cringed at the memory even as Da Vinci's words finally made sense to him in a way they never had before, but then he gave himself over utterly to the present moment, knowing that, much like making love, no matter how long it lasted it would be over far too soon.


	17. Presto 2

_For the next few chapters our characters will be speaking a mixture of English and French. In an effort to make this easier for everyone concerned, dialogue in English will be enclosed in normal speechmarks. Dialogue in French will be shown as -French being spoken here-, although some common words may appear in their original language._

 _The War Pensions Office is entirely my own creation: I simply don't know (and can't google) enough about the administration of French WWI pensions and Paris c.1929 to write based on historical fact. Anyone with information that may help is warmly invited to PM me._

 _Just a reminder that a lot of Phryne's backstory in these chapters come from Kerry Greenwood's original novel 'Murder in Montparnasse' and is not my original creation._

* * *

It was only when he clambered out of the plane onto a Parisian airfield several hours later that Jack realised just how cold and cramped he had been, just how stiff he was as a result, and just how thoroughly his ears had been assaulted by the constant rush of wind and roar of the engine. He also realised just how little any of that mattered to him. Phryne took in the grin that was threatening to split her lover's face in two and grinned back, eyes dancing.

"So, what did you think of your first flight?"

"It was..." Unaccustomed to the use of superlatives, he struggled to express himself. "Incredible."

She leaned into his side, tucking herself under his arm so that they were standing as close as possible without being face to face. "If you want, I could teach you to fly?"

The very idea came as a revelation. Of course she could teach him to fly, he thought, and he would be able to take to the skies anytime he wanted. Life with Phryne meant a life of previously undreamed-of opportunities and privileges, but until now they had seemed purely hypothetical. "That would be... I would like that. Very much."

She leaned her head fondly against him for a moment. Although the adjustment to her new social status had presented many challenges to her adolescent self – demanding that she change such fundamental traits as the way she spoke, dressed, walked, ate and sat, as well as tearing her away from all the people and places who had made up her entire world – her imagination and the natural enthusiasm of youth had meant that she had little trouble grasping the implications of sudden wealth in terms of the fact that she, who had grown up with practically nothing, could now have almost anything her heart desired. For Jack, with his innate caution and far less fanciful personality, she suspected it was going to take a while longer to adjust – although, conversely, his natural self-restraint and good manners also meant that he would have much less difficulty finding acceptance within his new social circle.

She was pulled from her reflections by the arrival of one of the local ground crew, a man of perhaps thirty-five in reassuringly work-worn clothes with an open and cheerful manner, and raised her head from Jack's shoulder in order to step forward and speak with him.

-Good afternoon, Miss, I hope your flight was uneventful?- Country French, Phryne thought, not Parisian. Probably moved to the city in pursuit of new opportunities. Appears to have been fortunate enough to find them.

-Completely, thank you,- she replied, offering her hand for a brief, businesslike shake and refraining from offering her cheek for a kiss. -Has the hotel yet sent a car for us?-

-Yes indeed. He has been waiting since a half hour. If it pleases you, Miss, you can show your passports to the officer inside and I shall attend to the plane.-

-Thank you, monsieur...?-

-Jacques,- the mechanic replied with a slightly wry smile. -My mother, she was not given to fancy.-

-Thank you, Jacques,- Phryne offered her hand once again. -And that is a very fine name.-

She turned away to open the hatch for their bags.

"Well?" Jack asked, having been unable to follow much of what he had heard.

"We just need to get our passports stamped inside, and there's a car waiting for us." She looked at her watch. "If the formalities don't take too long, we may just make the War Pensions Office before they close. Oh, and our mechanic's name is Jack."

He smiled at her as he took the bags. "That much, at least, I understood."

...

The streets of Paris brought back memories for both of them. For Phryne this was the city where she had finally discovered not only who she was but also who she wanted to be, and had set out to become her. For Jack it had been a brief waystation on his post-armistice journey home, a place that a small part of his bruised and war-weary soul had told him he ought to appreciate, but to which he had simply not been able to muster the internal resources to do justice. It was tiredness and hunger, he told himself firmly, that were drawing him down into introspection and melancholy now, nothing more. Many of his fellow diggers had thoroughly enjoyed almost every moment of their time in Paris, throwing themselves into what was effectively a twenty-four hour party with the hedonistic, almost manic, glee of those who had experienced the sudden and inexplicable restoration of hope long since abandoned, but for him it had simply been too soon. He pulled his gaze from the window to look across at Phryne, who was regarding the city with shining eyes. Perhaps she would be the key that would finally unlock the delights of Paris to him. After all, if anyone could it would be her.

The Office of French War Pensions was a surprisingly unprepossessing building in the heart of the bureaucratic quarter, and the driver from the Hotel Magnifique managed to deposit them outside it with surprising speed and efficiency. The polished stone of the foyer rang under the heels of their shoes as they approached the reception desk.

-The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, recipient of the Medaille d'Honneur, and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, veteran of the Australian Army,- Phryne began, before the receptionist could speak. -We are here seeking information on the former members of my ambulance unit, one of whom was recently found murdered in London.-

-Yes, Miss, Sir,- the obviously-flustered young woman responded, half-rising as she spoke, -I am sorry, I will speak with my supervisor if you please.-

As it so often did, Phryne's impressive flow of words and air of effortless command was achieving in moments what mere good manners, shouting, or bribery would struggle to manage in half a day, and she nodded imperiously as the woman scurried out. For several moments there was an air of hasty behind-the-scenes consultation, complete with several heads thrust around doors and swiftly withdrawn before a slightly older man with a large and insincere smile emerged.

-Miss Fisher, I am Monsieur Durand. I am very sorry but I do not think we can help you today. You see-

-Miss Phryne!- Another voice cut across M. Durand's as another man strode briskly into the foyer. Unlike M. Durand his attitude held no hint of apology and his broad smile bore every evidence of being sincere.

-Gerard Morin? Is it you?- Phryne's smile could have rivalled the new arrival's, and Jack clamped down ruthlessly on a sudden surge of jealousy. Another 'old friend' by the look of it, and he reminded himself that such a connection might well be useful to them if he could just grit his teeth and endure it.

-Yes, it's me!- As he spoke, Gerard took Phryne's hands in his own and kissed her on one cheek, then the other. -But what are you doing here? And who is your companion?-

Remembering Jack's feelings Phryne withdrew her hands gently from Gerard's and took a step closer to her fiancé, laying a hand on his arm and feeling him relax slightly as she did so. -Ah, this is my fiancé, Jack Robinson. He speaks only a little French, so be patient.-

"But this is good. I have been learning the English, and now I shall practice." Jack found his hand being eagerly pumped by the smiling Frenchman. "Mister Robinson, I am 'appy to make your acquaintance. Miss Phryne, she is a very fine woman, and I wish you every 'appiness. But please, please, both of you-" he gestured towards one of the doors leading further into the building "-come to my office. Tell me 'ow I can 'elp you. Marie!" he added, glancing towards the receptionist, -refreshments, if you please.-

"It's a small thing, really," Phryne began as they found themselves seated in Gerard Morin's office. "I need to contact the women who served with my ambulance unit."

"You 'ave come all the way 'ere from London for this. It is a matter of some importance, no?"

"I'm afraid so." Phryne spoke more slowly than usual for Gerard's sake, but in English for Jack's. "One of the women I served with, Yvette Benot, has been murdered, and I believe these other women may have information that can help find her killer."

"Murdered? This is a terrible thing. Of course I will 'elp you. Please, you 'ave the names?"

"Right here." Phryne withdrew a list of the women's names from her handbag. Gerard accepted it and read it through quickly.

"This is a simple thing, although I regret that you may 'ave to wait a short while. But let me go and speak to my staff." He bustled from the room and Jack turned to Phryne, able for the most part to restrain his jealousy but not his curiosity.

"So, Monsieur Morin?"

"It's not what you think." At his raised eyebrow she chuckled slightly. "No, it really isn't."

"He saved your life?"

"I saved his. And the men in his unit. Well," her smile faded, "some of them, at least. Their position had been shelled, and my unit was called in to take the injured to safety. But the shelling resumed... We got them out, but it wasn't easy."

"She does not say, she nearly died." Gerard had returned while they were speaking. "A shell, it explode, and she is 'it in the 'ead. Almost, she die, but no. And she saved my men."

Jack stared at Phryne, trying to understand. "You were hit by shrapnel?" He tried to recall whether he had ever seen a scar that would match that account, but couldn't.

"Mmm." And she removed her hat and placed it on the desk before turning her head to one side and pushing back her hair to reveal the long line of a scar against her scalp. "So, I got three weeks' recovery time and the French Medal of Honour. And a lovely, though mercifully well-concealed, scar." She let her hair fall back into place and regarded Gerard as though there were nothing remarkable about her words. "Do your people think they will be able to help us?"

"I 'ave told them, ah, 'ow you say? -That their jobs depend upon it-."

"Their jobs depend on it," Phryne translated for Jack's benefit. At which point Marie arrived, bearing a tray with a coffee-pot, cups, a couple of ham rolls and several pastries.

-I am sorry, Sir, but they are not fresh. At the café, they say this is all they have left from lunch.-

-That is alright, Marie,- Gerard replied, gesturing for the receptionist to place the tray on his desk. -I am sure our guests will understand.-

Fresh or not, it was the first food the pair had seen since breakfast and they set to with a will, making polite conversation with their enthusiastic host until a clerk knocked on the door and, being invited to enter, placed Phryne's list and two other sheets of paper in his superior's hand.

"Ah, 'ere we are," Gerard exclaimed. "And... yes, I think we 'ave managed to find all that you will need. But perhaps you will tell me 'ow it all, er, works out, no?"

"I shall write to you the first chance I get," Phryne replied, as they rose and repeated the ritual of hand-clasping and cheek-kissing. "Thank you, Gerard. Finding you here was the first piece of good fortune we have had on this case."

"May it not be the last," Gerard replied, offering his hand to Jack. "Monsieur, I 'ope you know 'ow lucky you are. This woman, she is a treasure from God."

"Of that, I am well aware," Jack agreed as their host walked them back to the waiting car.


	18. Presto 3

_My apologies for the delay in updating - I've been busy with other projects. Special thanks to Bellarian for all her wonderful reviews._

 _Once again I would like to acknowledge that I have drawn heavily upon Kerry Greenwood's original novel Murder in Montparnasse in writing this chapter._

* * *

The refreshments and Gerard's assistance had gone a long way towards reviving Jack's flagging spirits and he couldn't help but smile as Phryne, pleased by the progress they had made and the unexpected encounter with her old friend, chattered away cheerfully.

"The Hotel Magnifique is where I stayed when I first rolled into Paris. Heaven knows what they must have thought of the filthy, bedraggled creature who presented herself in their foyer, but I knew my father had an account there, and as I was effectively penniless it seemed like a good idea. And it was, until they decided to send Father a telegram. He responded by _ordering_ me to stay put until he could send someone to collect me."

"So you left immediately." How on earth had the Baron convinced himself that she would do otherwise, he wondered.

"Naturally." She paused and gave him a sly look. "With a hefty cash advance against his name from the Hotel's coffers and the most gorgeous coat I purchased on his account from some outfitter's. I forget the name, but I swear that coat is the only reason I didn't freeze to death." Her expression clouded briefly. "That was a hard winter, in so many ways."

"The 'flu."

"And the food shortages."

"René Dubois."

"Bastard."

He reached over to give her a quick, reassuring squeeze and a kiss on the temple. She smiled and continued.

"But it was wonderful as well. Toupie and the Sapphics in Montparnasse were so kind to me. The whole artistic community, they made me feel like I belonged. Like I was beautiful."

His eyebrows rose as he regarded her in frank surprise. "You didn't know that before?"

She rolled her eyes playfully. "It wasn't true before. I was always too skinny, too sullen, my hair too dark and too straight... but then along came the Moderns and I was the height of fashion. Pierre 'discovered' me, and then was absolutely devastated when his wife promptly told me to triple my fees."

"Pierre Sarcelle?"

"And Veronique. Who I must telephone: we simply can't visit Paris without seeing her. A shame Jane's still away in Italy."

Jack smiled. "Well, you are paying for a first class education. But for now..." the car was pulling up to the curb outside what looked like a very expensive hotel, "perhaps we can take a short while to unpack and refresh ourselves."

...

After pausing at the front desk just long enough for Phryne to dispatch a series of telegrams to her former comrades, they were shown to a luxurious suite with a large reception room, two bedrooms and an ensuite bathroom. Jack looked from one bedroom door to the other and then back to Phryne.

"Do you want us to sleep in separate beds?"

"I'd rather we didn't," she replied, and he relaxed.

"Ah. Well, good."

They shared the bathroom, with kisses, caresses and long looks punctuating their ablutions before they dressed and lingered over a cup of coffee at the small table by the window overlooking the Rue de St. Honoré, where the shadows were already lengthening.

"Were you thinking of dining in Montparnasse tonight?" Jack asked.

Phryne chuckled. "I think the Quartier Latin by night might be a bit much on your first evening in Paris. How about a stroll by the Seine and dinner somewhere a little less demanding?"

"As long as it's not snails."

"How about cuisses de grenouille?" she responded, with a teasing expression that earned her a suspicious look. "Frog's legs," she translated obligingly, and Jack turned his gaze to the window in an effort to hide his amusement.

"I don't think so, Miss Fisher."

...

For the first time in several days they were in no hurry, so they took their time to stroll hand in hand down to the Seine and across the Pont Neuf to the Île de la Cité. The Cathedral was crowded with a mixture of tourists and worshippers and they both felt slightly awkward gawking at a house of prayer, so they didn't stay long. Although she had decided against Montparnasse for the evening, Phryne couldn't help but skirt her old haunts, and her feet led them over to the Left Bank almost of their own accord. Her hand warm in Jack's, a familiar and well-loved place wrapped around her, and she felt more at peace than she had since she had recognised Yvette Benot's face in that East End alleyway.

"Books!" Jack exclaimed suddenly, breaking her reverie.

"Books?"

"That sign." He pointed. "It says 'books'. In English," he added, in case she had missed the import of his words.

As she had, in fact, missed the import of his words, she shook herself slightly. "So it does." A memory tried to nudge its way to the front of her mind, an American accent, female... she couldn't quite place it, so let it go for the moment. "I think that warrants investigation."

They had barely rounded the corner onto the Rue de la Bucherie when they both saw it. A proud sign emblazoned with one of the most familiar names in the English-speaking world: 'Shakespeare and Company,' proclaimed the bookstore that, judging by the lights and the barrow of books still on the street, was taking advantage of the evening foot-traffic. Moving with one accord they made their way inside, Jack drawn almost immediately to the wares while Phryne gazed around in appreciation. There was something about this that seemed so very familiar, but she still hadn't put her finger on it when an American voice called out in English,

"Phryne Fisher, as I live and breathe!"

"Sylvia!" The pieces fell into place as Phryne recalled an old friend from years before and her dream of opening an English-language bookstore in the heart of Paris. The women embraced as Jack looked up from the book he was already considering purchasing.

"And who's this?"

"Jack Robinson, from Australia. My fiancé."

"Well, I'm charmed to meet you," Sylvia offered her hand.

"Uh, likewise." Jack blinked, surprised to be confronted by a second old friend in so short a space of time. "You knew Phryne when she lived in Paris?"

"I certainly did, and I have to say, it looks as though her taste has improved since then. Tell me, Jack, what do you do?"

"I'm a police officer. A detective." It seemed easier than trying to explain the true situation.

"A real life detective? How exciting."

Drinks were poured and they spent over an hour together as Sylvia and Phryne renewed their acquaintance and Jack listened with a mixture of admiration and alarm to tales of Phryne's artistic days. But her hand was folded in his, and she squeezed it warmly whenever she sensed that he was becoming too unsettled, and in the end he was left with an ineffable sense that however much fun she may have had back then she was nonetheless only too glad of what she shared with him in the here and now.

Sylvie refused payment when it was time to leave, proclaiming that it was her privilege as a bookstore owner and lover of literature to gift a book to someone who would truly appreciate it, and so he left with a slim green volume containing a pocket-sized anthology of some of Shakespeare's best-known and loved speeches, sonnets, and poems.

They hadn't walked much further when the smell of something delicious wafted across their senses. They exchanged a look and sniffed appreciatively, their attention swiftly narrowing on the window of a small restaurant. The savoury smell intensified as they entered the dimly-lit interior, along with the distinct aroma of gauloises and spilt red wine. This, Phryne thought, was a real Parisian restaurant. The food would be excellent, the wine mediocre, and the service, in all probability, bordering on the appalling. At the far end of the room a young man was playing the accordion. Three young students in animated conversation were half-way through a bottle of some clear, and probably lethal, beverage by the window. In a dark corner a pair of lovers – probably married, probably not to one another – were gazing into one another's eyes. At another table an elderly man with the sorrowful eyes of one who had once dined amidst the bustle of a crowded family table ate alone with a glass of wine. Ah, Paris.

-You would like...?- the waiter – young, bored, sullen – asked after spending a long moment studiously ignoring them, when it became apparent that they weren't going to turn around and leave.

-A table for two, if you please,- Phryne began, and waved away the menu as they were seated. -A bottle of one of the more approachable wines and two of whatever is generating that delectable aroma.-

The waiter's sullen expression changed to a very small smile. -Ratatouille. My aunt's special recipe. But here they call it a peasant dish.-

-But to me, it smells like dinner,- Phryne replied. -If it tastes even half as good as it smells, your aunt is a genius.-

Perhaps due to Phryne's flattery the service was much less appalling than it might have been. The wine – vin du table that was, indeed, a study in mediocrity – was served swiftly along with crusty French bread. Jack, whose appreciation for wine had had little chance to develop before he became a regular guest at Phryne's table, sipped, then regarded his glass warily.

"It isn't particularly good," Phryne affirmed his judgement in a low voice, "but it isn't appalling either. Just sip and smile and let it burn off a few taste-buds and you'll be fine."

The ratatouille truly was a work of genius, the vegetables sliced wafer-thin and slow-cooked to perfection in a sauce which was quite possibly a centuries-old family secret. People might have died for this recipe, Phryne thought, recalling the case of the feuding Italian restaurants, or committed unspeakable sins. Those who scorned it as peasant food had no idea what they were missing out on.

They were lingering over a last cup of coffee and, because the waiter himself recommended it in confidential tones, a delicious crème brûlée, when one of the students from the table by the window approached them somewhat unsteadily.

-Your pardon, Monsieur, Madame, but my friends and I...-

-Yes?- Phryne prompted, when he seemed to lose his train of thought.

-You are so beautiful, Madame, and we wish to know, have you ever been an artist's model? There is a painting – the resemblance is astounding – she is Venus, a goddess, and you, Madame, you are her image...-

-Yes, in all probability it's me,- Phryne confirmed. -I modelled for many artists after the War. Sarcelle, L'Anglais, de Lempicka... And you are?-

-My apologies, Madame,- her interlocutor replied, seeming suddenly flustered. -I am nobody, merely a student of law, Simon Dumont. But you have won an argument for me, and now I shall not have to pay tonight's bill, which is fortunate since I find myself embarrassed in the financial department... goodnight, Madame, Monsieur.-

She managed not to chuckle until the young man and his friends were again preoccupied with their raki and conversation.

"What was all that about?" Jack asked, having once again found himself unequal to following the discussion.

"Silly young schoolboys betting on whether I was an artists' model," she replied fondly. "Ah, Jack, were we ever so young and foolish?"

He considered. Those young men must be in their early twenties, he thought, the same age he had been when he went to war, and older than Phryne had been when she had joined her ambulance unit. "Well," he replied with a sigh, "we were certainly that young." The momentary regret that seized him when he contemplated those years gone by was washed away when Phryne leaned closer to him.

"Thank heaven that's over," she told him with a smile.


	19. Discord

_After reading your lovely comments about how much you're enjoying seeing Phryne and Jack being all romantic and happy in Paris I almost feel guilty about this chapter. Almost._

* * *

 **Part 7: Discord**

They were strolling hand in hand back towards the river when a young man with his head down collided with Jack.

"Hey!" he frowned, not appreciating such bad manners.

-Sorry,- the man muttered, and kept walking.

Jack, whose career had made suspicion almost as natural as breathing, immediately checked his pockets and was annoyed but unsurprised by the absence of his wallet. "Damn!" He swung round, Phryne turning with him in no doubt as to the cause of his ire. "Hey!" he shouted again, louder this time, and the man began to run.

-Stop, thief!- Phryne yelled as they both immediately gave chase. The pickpocket glanced back, startled to see not only his mark but the woman as well in hot pursuit. Pedestrians scattered as he rounded a corner and threw the wallet aside in an effort to distract them. Jack paused to pick it up, but Phryne was right behind the thief as he clattered around another corner and down the steps of the La Sorbonne metro station. A train was just boarding and she saw the thief push through one of the last open doors. Leaping after him, she felt it slam shut on her left hand and jerked away instinctively, but her foot was already on the threshold and her right hand was gripping the now-locked door handle. She felt the train jerk and begin to move and tried once more to open the door, her other foot leaving the platform as she did so. By the time she realised that she was unable to gain entry, the train was already underway.

Jack caught sight of Phryne's coat disappearing down the steps of a metro station and thinned his lips. He had his wallet back: he was willing to abandon the pursuit, but he could not abandon Phryne. And so he clattered down after her as a train began to pull away from the station. The thief must have been on board, and to his alarm he saw Phryne apparently trying to open the door of the already-moving train. He called her name and she glance back, but to his horror she did not jump clear. As the train gathered speed he saw her redouble her grip and press in close before it disappeared around a bend in the track.

"No!" He glanced around, desperate for help, and saw a guard. -Excuse me. The train. Where? Where next?-

The guard clearly hadn't seen what had happened and stared at Jack in puzzlement for a moment as he tried to make sense of his broken French. -The next station?- he asked, and Jack nodded frantically. -That would be the Odeon.-

-The Odeon?- Jack repeated, and the guard nodded. -Thank you.-

He raced back up the stairs, ignoring the burning that was beginning to set in in muscles suddenly pushed hard and fast after months of relative ease, and flung himself into the nearest cab. -The Odeon Metro, please. Quick!-

-Uh, yes sir,- the bemused driver replied, taking in the desperate air of his passenger, and pulled out into the traffic. As they drove Jack drew out his wallet and took a French banknote from it, not even glancing at its value. -The Odeon, sir,- the cabbie announced in a blessedly short space of time, pulling over to the curb.

-Thank you.- Jack thrust the money at the cabbie as he flung himself from the vehicle and down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Phryne had been clinging to the train as it lurched along the track, trying to focus on her fury at the young man who had dared disrupt such a perfectly lovely day and not on her memories of that terrible day when she had accompanied Veronique to the morgue to identify her dead husband. There had been a sheet pulled over Pierre's body and the police had drawn just a very little of it aside, revealing just enough of his face for Veronique to give a cry of recognition before she collapsed into the helpless sobs of the suddenly and violently bereaved, but Phryne, fresh from the battle-field, had been only too keenly aware that whatever was concealed beneath the rest of that sheet was far from the intact body of a hearty adult male. With a gasp, she returned to the present moment and tightened her grip still further. She would not allow Jack to face such a thing.

The clatter and rush of the train seemed to continue for an eternity before it finally started to slow as it reached the Odeon metro station. Phryne released her grip and stepped shakily to the ground, but before she could continue her interrupted pursuit she felt a heavy hand on her arm and turned to see a large and evidently thoroughly unimpressed guard.

-Come with me, miss,- he said, half-dragging her to one side as passengers who had travelled in a more conventional manner began to descend from the train. She tried to free her arm from the guard's vice-like grip and failed; tried to explain and was cut off.

-What is your name and where are you from? Have you been drinking?- the guard barked.

-Miss Phryne Fisher, and I am most certainly not drunk!- she replied, with some asperity. -There's a thief on that train, and I was endeavouring to apprehend him.-

-You are a police officer, then?- the guard enquired, his tone making it clearly evident that he would not believe her if she said she was.

-No, I'm a private detective. And I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of my arm.-

But the guard only tightened his grip still further. -You are mad. Or drunk. And I have no intention of releasing you until the police get here.-

"Phryne!" Jack clattered down the stairs and onto the platform, relieved beyond measure to see Phryne now safe, if evidently in the custody of a guard. The train pulled away, but Phryne ignored it to turn her relieved gaze on Jack.

"Jack, thank goodness." She switched back to French for the guard's benefit, although she ostensibly continued to address her fiancé. -This guard seized me as soon as we reached the platform, and now the thief has got away!-

Jack ignored the French and walked over to lay his hand gently on Phryne's free arm. -Thank you, sir. She is my fiancée.-

-She is mad, or drunk,- the guard replied. -Take her home, sir, and do not allow her out unaccompanied. Be glad I do not turn you both over to the police.-

Jack didn't understand all of what he had just heard, but he recognised the word 'gendarmes' as the guard released Phryne's arm, and hesitated.

"He says we can go," she translated.

"Ah. Good." His grip was nowhere near as tight as the guard's but Phryne took one look at his face, now clouded with anger, and decided that she wasn't in the mood for a public row, so she followed him silently up the stairs. She was still shaken by her unexpectedly perilous ride, her arm was aching, her left hand was throbbing, and she had banged her knee as well, to say nothing of losing the thief whose actions had instigated the entire pursuit. She was in the mood for sympathy, but she doubted she was going to receive it. She considered crying, but brushed the thought away. She was damned if she'd use tears to gain Jack Robinson's pity.

The cabbie was still waiting at the top of the stairs. Unlike the guard, he had apparently grasped the rudimentary nature of Jack's French and spoke slowly and simply. -Sir, this is too much money.-

-Good.- Jack opened the door of the cab and gestured for Phryne to climb inside. -The Hotel Magnifique, if you please.-

"Jack, I-"

"We can discuss this later." Jack cut her off, glaring straight ahead.

"But Jack-"

He turned a furious gaze briefly on her. "Later!"

She folded her arms across her chest and subsided into her seat, seething. They were barely back in their hotel room when she whirled to face him and opened her mouth to take up the argument, but he beat her to it.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking? Dammit Phryne, you could have been killed! And for what? Some stupid petty thief who didn't even _have_ my wallet anymore. Is that really worth dying for? Are you so desperate to throw your life away that you're willing to fling yourself onto a moving train?"

"First of all, it wasn't moving when I tried to board!" she snapped back. "Secondly, it's not as if I planned this. I was reacting on instinct, I'll admit it! But the last thing I need is you-"

"Is me what? Loving you? Caring about you? Not wanting you to die because you're the only thing that makes my life worth living, but you're too selfish to-"

Her hand seemed to leap out of its own accord and she slapped him once, hard, across the face. There was a frozen instant when they stared at one another in horror, a grotesque parody of the moment before they had first made love, and then Jack caught her wrists and spun her around, pinning her face-first against the wall for all the world as though he were about to clap on the handcuffs and take her into custody.

"Never again, Phryne! You will _never_ do that again."

"Jack!" She had injured herself on a moving train, been manhandled by a guard, and had a row with Jack. To be so suddenly restrained was more than her frayed nerves could stand, and a surge of panic drowned out her rage. "Jack, dammit, let me go!" She struggled, tried to pull free, but it was useless. He was larger than her, heavier than her, and very, very experienced in using a combination of a firm grip and his bodyweight to prevent people intent on evading him or doing him harm from achieving either aim.

"No, Phryne, that's enough." Suddenly becoming aware of their relative positions and her evident fear he felt his shock and anger subside, replaced by reluctant concern, and softened his voice but not his grip. "Phryne, please. I'll let you go if you promise not to try and hurt me." She was sobbing now, still struggling like a bird in a trap, and he felt a lump rise in his throat but he was dammed if he'd let her get away with this. Permit her to resort to violence now and it would become a pattern that would turn their relationship into something he had no intention of accepting. "Phryne, love, I'm not going to hurt you, but you can't hurt me either, do you understand?"

Her struggles were becoming less violent, her sobs increasing, and after a moment she went limp with defeat and nodded. "I promise. I'm sorry."

He released her at once and stepped back as she turned her tearful face to his. "Jack, I-"

"Not now, Phryne." He cut her off once again, although his tone was gentler this time, and shook his head. "I need to take a walk. I'll be back soon, I just need... some fresh air."

The door closed behind him – softly, not slammed – as she subsided into a chair and drew her legs up to her chest, staring unseeing at the wall in the darkened room.


	20. Harmony

_And now I make everything alright again :-)_

* * *

 **Part 8: Harmony**

Jack walked blindly through the streets surrounding the Hotel Magnifique. He had overreacted. She had overreacted. He could not allow her to treat him like that. He loved her. They needed to make up. She had acted on impulse, as she always did. As he knew she always did. He thought he had come to terms with it. He couldn't shout at her every time she did it. He wanted her to be more careful. He couldn't make her be more careful. One day he might lose her because she wasn't willing to be careful. But too many fights like this and he would lose her anyway. He loved her. He could not lose her. He could only love her and hope for the best. But he could not tolerate her directing violence at him. He needed a drink. Oh God, he needed a drink.

Phryne sat alone in their hotel room, staring at the wall. She had slapped Jack. She had slapped him. Oh God, oh God, she had slapped Jack. What had she become? Was she like her father? Like René? She loved Jack; fiercely, passionately, as she had never loved anyone before, and he loved her, with a sweetness and tenderness that had come as a revelation in her life. And now she had hit him. She had hurt him. Her lower lip trembled and tears threatened to spill. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him she was sorry, so sorry, that it would never happen again, never, ever again, and hear him say that it was all alright, that he would forgive her and let her make it right. She buried her head in her arms and let the tears fall.

He had a drink, but only one. Just enough to steady his nerves before he went back to smooth things over with Phryne. He could still feel her slim wrists in his hands, her body struggling and trembling under his weight. Oddly, those sensations seemed to linger with greater force than the imprint of her palm on his face, although his cheek still stung too. He wanted – needed – to gather her close and replace those feelings with other, more pleasant, ones. That was as much for her sake as his: Phryne, unlike Rosie, was intensely physical in her affection, and as long as she was receptive to his overtures lovemaking would very likely be the most effective way to comfort her, as well as himself, and make things right between them.

The room was dark when he unlocked the door, and it took him a moment to locate Phryne, seated in an armchair near the single lighted lamp. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, and although she looked up when he entered she made no move to rise. He knew that expression all too well, and hung his coat and hat before going to crouch in front of her.

"Never again, Phryne," he said softly. "You can never hit me again." She nodded, lip trembling, and he could see that she, who almost never cried, had been weeping. He reached out for her hands. "But I'm sorry I lost my temper." She nodded, but as he took her hands in his she flinched and pulled back with a sharp inhalation of pain. "Phryne?"

She turned her left hand palm upward and held it out to him entreatingly, lowering her feet to the floor. "I caught it in the door of the train," she explained, her voice low and rough with tears. "That's what distracted me. It's why I didn't think to let go in time."

Jack cradled her hand in his and examined it, though he could see little in the half-light. "Wait there." He went to turn on the light and ring for a maid, then returned to her side. "Let me see." The skin wasn't broken, but it was hot to the touch and already darkening with bruising not only across her palm but over the back of her hand as well.

"I don't think it's broken," she told him. "Just bruised. It needs a cold compress and something to bring down the swelling." He nodded and made to rise and fetch a cool cloth from the bathroom, but was interrupted by a tap on the door.

-Come in,- he called.

A young maid entered. -May I be of service, sir?-

-Yes, thank you. She is hurt. Her hand.-

The maid stepped forward. -May I see?-

-Of course,- Phryne responded as the young woman came to crouch before her.

After a moment she gave a nod of understanding. -Ah, I see. Yes, I shall return shortly.-

As the maid left the room Jack went to the bathroom and fetched a cool, damp flannel. "Here," he said, returning to Phryne and wrapping it around her hand.

"Thank you." He nodded, and for a few moments they remained there, bent over Phryne's injured hand. After a while she raised her right hand and gently touched Jack's cheek, feeling the heat that still radiated from his skin. "Jack, I'm so sorry."

He nodded again and turned into her touch, closing his eyes. "I know." She dropped her hand and her gaze to her lap with an air of defeat.

"All this time I've been so afraid of them, and I'm just like them. René. My father," she clarified.

"Phryne." He lifted her chin with his free hand. "Phryne, look at me." And when she reluctantly did so, he continued. "You are nothing like them. How many times do you think either of them sat crying in the dark over what they'd done to you?"

She gave a small, wry smile, and sniffed. "Never."

"You are not them, and you are not going to become them."

"But what if I do it again?" She couldn't keep the fear from her voice. The last thing in the world that she wanted was to drive Jack away.

"Then I suppose you'll end up pinned against the wall again. But I'd rather we didn't make a habit of that."

That earned him a slightly bigger smile. "Me too."

"Well then." He wrapped the arm that was not occupied with her hand around her and raised himself up far enough to kiss the top of her head. They were still in that position when the maid returned, at which point Jack released her and moved aside just far enough to allow the young woman to crouch alongside him.

-I have brought bandages.- She held them out for Jack's inspection. -And this salve, which is excellent for bruises.- Again, she proffered the item she described, removing the lid of the jar so that Jack would be in no doubt as to the contents. -And I would also recommend a strong drink.-

"She says you should ply me with liquor," Phryne paraphrased that last, realising that the maid lacked anything appropriate to demonstrate with.

"Ah, I see." Jack accepted the proffered items with a quick nod of the head. -Thank you.-

-Not at all,- the maid replied, rising. -Should you need anything else, please ring again.-

-Thank you.- She left, and Jack turned his attention to binding up Phryne's hand. He was sure she could have done a better job, but was nonetheless satisfied with his efforts. When he had finished he took the remaining salve, spare bandage, and flannel to the bathroom and washed his hands before returning to pour both of them a drink.

"Jack?" Her voice was plaintive as she accepted the glass of cognac that he proffered.

"Mmm?"

"Am I forgiven?"

He felt a lump rise in his throat and removed the glass from her hand, setting it aside along with his own so that he could tug her gently to her feet by her uninjured hand. "Phryne, come here." She rose and he wrapped his arms about her, holding her close and feeling her press against him, burying her face in his shoulder. "Of course I forgive you, love." He nudged her head with his own so that she would look at him and gave her a gentle, teasing smile. "It's not as if I don't have a certain amount of practise." She gave a small, shaky laugh before returning her face to his shoulder. "And it's not as if I can claim perfect innocence. You were hurt, and I was too busy shouting at you even to notice."

"Because I took a foolish risk," she countered, her voice muffled by his clothing, evidently still feeling guilty.

"Well, yes. But again, I really should be accustomed to that by now." He pressed a few kisses against her head, then manoeuvred them both until he was seated in the armchair with her in his lap. "Now come on," he reached across and picked up her glass again, "drink your medicine like a good girl."

She raised her head and accepted the glass with another small smile. "I'm afraid I'm not really a very good girl, Jack."

"On the contrary," he took a sip from his own glass. The Magnifique stocked very good liquor. "I would say you're a very good girl. You're not always a very sensible one, and you don't always take the time to look before you leap, but when you do leap it's usually in the cause of right." He hugged her a little closer. "And that makes you a very good girl indeed."

"But no more slapping," she said with some determination.

He nodded. "No more slapping." He chimed his glass with hers to seal the deal.

After a few moments she sighed and laid her head upon his shoulder again, the alcohol evidently doing its work. "We had such a lovely day, Jack. I don't want it to end like this."

He glanced over at the clock on the mantlepiece, and realised with some surprise that their whole ordeal, from the time the thief had picked his pocket until now, had been over in less than two hours.

"Me neither." He glanced around for inspiration, and his eyes fell on the corner of his Shakespeare anthology peeking out from the pocket of his coat. "Why don't I read to you for a while?"

She nodded eagerly. "But, in bed?" she suggested.

And so, after he had helped her bathe and change, and had bathed and changed himself, they settled down together with another glass of cognac.

"'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!  
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music  
Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night  
Become the touches of sweet harmony.  
Sit, Phryne : look, how the floor of heaven  
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold :  
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st  
But in his motion like an angel sings,  
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;  
Such harmony is in immortal souls.'"

She smiled sleepily against his shoulder. "You changed that just for me," she murmured, and he smiled crookedly in response.

"I did. The original name is Jessica."

She yawned, too tired and blurred by alcohol to think clearly. "Which play is that from?"

"The Merchant of Venice. Act five, scene one. From memory, Lorenzo and his bride have had some silly quarrel in the moonlight, and he's making up to her."

"How do you always know just what to say?" she asked, as he set the book aside and they both lay down, snuggling into a close embrace.

He smiled again. "I think you'll find those are Shakespeare's words, not mine."

"Mmm. I'm glad we made up."

He kissed the top of her head. "Me too."


	21. Andante 1

**Part Nine: Andante**

An outside observer the next morning would have had no difficulty deducing who had come off worst the night before. While Jack's cheek still bore the red imprint of Phryne's hand, already giving way to bruising over the cheekbone, Phryne herself was barely able to use her left hand and limping slightly from the stiffness in her left knee. The guard's grip had left its mark on her upper arm, and Jack's had left similar traces on her wrists. She felt Jack's gaze on her as she dressed and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder in a way she knew he liked. As she had known he would, he tightened his arms around her and leaned into her with a sigh, and for a long moment she let him hold her there before she leaned back slightly and met his gaze.

"Now," she said briskly, "that's enough moping. We still have a murder to solve, Inspector."

He smiled down at her with the warmth and affection that last night she'd been so desperately afraid she'd lost. "We do indeed. What's our first stop? Dolly Wilde?"

Phryne gave a throaty chuckle. "Madame Barney holds her weekly salon on a Friday night: I doubt either of them will appreciate visitors before noon today. Why don't we wander down to Montparnasse, and then take the metro out to see Veronique? I can telephone her so she'll know to expect us, and I'd love to show you some of my old haunts. We can meet Dolly for dinner, and with a bit of luck by this evening some of the girls will have answered our telegrams and we'll have some solid leads to follow up on."

...

"If you were demobbed in Paris I'm surprised you never visited Montparnasse," Phryne remarked as they crossed the Seine. A pained expression crossed Jack's face.

"I've always been more inclined to seek consolation in a bottle than a brothel, Miss Fisher," he admitted in a tight voice. "I managed to bestir myself to visit a few of the sights while I was here, but beyond that I barely looked beyond the bottom of my glass."

There was so much suffering in those few words, so much mental anguish, that she hugged his arm as tight as she could and laid her head upon his shoulder as they were walking even though it was uncomfortable and threw her soundly off balance. After a moment she heard him draw a deep breath, apparently suppressing his memories by sheer force of will, and he withdrew his arm from hers in order to wrap it around her shoulders.

"But I'm assuming there's more to Montparnasse than vice, given how much time you spent there," he remarked more briskly.

"There is indeed, Inspector," she replied at once, forcing her own tone to lightness since that appeared to be what he wanted. "Montparnasse is the heart of the artistic community. The rents are low and artists, as you know, are seldom wealthy. There's an art dealer here, Sardou, I want to visit. He has an excellent eye and I've bought from him in the past." She paused and cast him a sideways look, deciding he needed distraction. "It was Sardou who tracked down 'Woman in Peignoir' for me."

Jack didn't respond immediately. That painting, _that painting,_ was seared irrevocably into his memory along with his first memory of the taste of her lips and the dawning realisation that he no longer disliked her, no longer regarded her as a nuisance, or even as an object of desire, but that he was falling for her, falling hard and fast and with little hope of stopping before he fell to his own destruction. Memories of that painting had fuelled many an illicit daydream since, right up until the day Phryne had flung herself down her stairs and into his arms and turned all those dreams into wondrous reality. In an instant the black cloud of memory which had oppressed him to varying degrees almost since the moment they had arrived in Paris lifted, and while he knew it would return he welcomed the respite with all his heart. But he only swallowed hard and asked

"What was it actually like, being an artist's model?"

Phryne had not missed one nuance of his reaction and smiled, pleased with the success of her strategem. "Honestly? Cold, uncomfortable, and incredibly boring." He glanced down at her and raised a sceptical eyebrow, and she laughed. "Sitting or lying in the same position for hours, with no clothes on, in a barely heated room, surrounded by men who are so completely enamoured with their art that they're barely aware that you aren't a vase of flowers or a bowl of fruit. Not nearly as exciting as people make it out to be."

...

While there wasn't a clearly defined line of demarcation to indicate exactly when they entered Montparnasse, Jack nonetheless had little difficulty in realising when they made the transition. It was something in the way the buildings became just a little shabbier, the streets just a little narrower, the people just a little stranger. Phryne steered them towards an art dealership on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, where the dealer's eyes widened with recognition before he, much like Gerard Morin, ran to clasp Phryne's hands and kiss her cheek.

-Miss Fisher, it has been too long!-

-Sardou. It's a pleasure to see you again. It has indeed been a long time. How is business these days?-

-Ah,- Sardou shook his head sadly, -it is not good, Miss, not good at all. The Americans, they are selling up and heading back home. So many works available, and at such reasonable prices, but where is the market that will buy them from me? But I suppose you are selling too?-

-Actually, I'm here to buy.- Phryne suppressed a grin at the expression on the dealer's face. Evidently he had been hoping to purchase paintings from her at far less than their true value, and instead had betrayed himself into having to sell for less than he might otherwise have made. -Others may have their troubles, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy now, while the market is favourable. Tell me, what do you have at the moment by de Lempicka and Picasso?-

-Well, we have a few works...- Sardou shook off his disappointment and resumed his customary manner. -And a couple of lovely Renoirs as well. I seem to recall you had a fondness for Renoir?-

Phryne chuckled slightly. -Not me, but my father. But let me see them; perhaps a peace offering would be a wise idea.-

Sardou raised an eyebrow at that, and Phryne remembered herself. -Oh, of course.- "Jack," she switched to English, "do come and meet M. Sardou." And then, when he didn't respond, "what are you looking at over there?"

It was a painting of Phryne, and it had captured his attention the moment he walked through the door. It was not a nude, nor was it particularly modern in style. Instead, it showed Phryne in the full blossom of her youth, her cheeks rosy with health and vitality, her hair, still long, cascading in a glossy mass over one shoulder. She was seated in a garden and it appeared to be spring, presumably the spring of 1919 or 1920. She was not looking at the artist but instead gazing slightly upward and to one side, her eyes sparkling and her lips curved in the mischievous smile he knew so well. If Sarcelle's nude had made him want to ravish her and Toupie's photograph had made him want to hold her close and protect her, this painting made him want to sweep her, laughing, into his arms and dance the night away with her, and kiss her until they were both breathless.

-Ah, yes,- Sardou remarked as they joined him before the painting. -Edouard l'Anglaise. Not exactly avant garde, but he does have a certain nostalgic charm. And he did capture you so perfectly, Miss. You like it then, sir?-

"Uh..." Jack looked uncertainly to Phryne. He had been too distracted to attend to the conversation and hadn't even realised he was being addressed until he heard the final 'Monsieur.'

-This is my fiancé, Jack Robinson. From the look on his face, I would say the painting is very much to his liking. How much is it?-

The dealer hesitated. Miss Fisher had been a very loyal customer, as well as being an artists' model and a member of the English upper class, and he had benefitted from her patronage of his establishment. He had never done her any favours when it came to prices, but neither had he ever cheated her. But now he was torn. He knew when a buyer wanted a work, and he could see that for her fiancé's sake Miss Fisher wanted that painting very much. Under normal circumstances that alone would be enough to see him add twenty percent to his starting price. But he also had a great affection and respect for the fierce, beautiful girl who had blossomed into a woman of refinement and elegance, if no less beauty and ferocity, and that, conversely, made him want to _reduce_ the price for her sake. -Perhaps, Miss, you can select your other paintings, and we can discuss prices at the end?-

-An excellent idea.-

...

"Why did you buy it?" Jack asked, after she had finalised her purchases and given instructions on which works were to be shipped back to Melbourne and which to London.

"What do you mean?" Phryne seemed genuinely puzzled.

"It's hardly your usual style. Even I recognise Impressionism when I see it, and you've always favoured more modern works."

"But you liked it," Phryne countered, then laughed lightly. "Jack, you stood there staring at it practically the entire time we were in the shop. It's not just my tastes that matter any more. You liked it. You liked it more than anything else in Sardou's entire collection; you barely even glanced at the rest of Sardou's collection. And art isn't just about what's fashionable at any given moment, or what's valuable, or what the critics say. It's about your feelings, the way you respond to a piece. And the way you responded to Edouard's painting..." She trailed off, then resumed more softly. "You loved that painting, Jack, so why shouldn't you have it?"

...

When she had returned to Paris after her second husband's death, Veronique Sarcelle had eschewed the artistic milieu of Montparnasse in favour of a quiet street in an outer arrondissement. René Dubois had made a handsome profit from the art of his wife's first husband, and upon his death – and thanks to Detective Inspector Jack Robinson's robust assertions that that death really had been a tragic and unanticipated accident – she had inherited enough money to live in modest comfort for the rest of her days. She had hired a housekeeper and lived quietly, taking coffee in the local cafés, walking in the nearby parks, and painting delicate watercolours in her airy first-floor studio. Under such circumstances the emotional scars left by René's abuse had inevitably begun to heal, and the elegant, well-dressed woman who greeted Phryne and Jack was very different from the worn, abused creature whom they had farewelled in Melbourne a year before.

-Phryne!- She kissed her younger friend's cheeks.

-Veronique! You look so well.-

-Thank you. And Inspector Robinson.- Jack sensed her slight hesitation and spoke in a gentle tone, taking her hand in his and lifting it to his lips for a gallant kiss.

"Madam Sarcelle. It's good to see you again."

-And you as well. But please, can I offer you a drink? Coffee? Something stronger?-

Their luncheon was both delicious and enjoyable, even if the conversation was somewhat restricted due to the necessity of Phryne's translating all but the simplest of statements and sentiments. Even so, Phryne somehow managed to turn the fear and upset of the night before into an amusing anecdote which served to allay the concern she had observed in Veronique's eyes as she first took in her bruises, and the meal passed in good humour. It was a relief to both of them to see Phryne's old friend looking so well and happy after so much sorrow, and they left feeling distinctly uplifted.


	22. Andante 2

"What did Veronique say to you as we left?" Jack asked as they made their way back to the hotel to change for dinner with Dolly Wilde and Natalie Barney. Phryne smiled.

"She said she was happy for me: that you were no René Dubois, and that she hoped I would be as happy with you as she was with Pierre; and that I should never forget to be grateful for what I have."

He smiled back at her. "You're not the only one."

He noticed she was limping as they made their way from the Metro station to the hotel. "How's your knee?"

She made a face. "Stiff. If we have time before dinner I might have a soak in the bath." He nodded and offered her his arm to lean on.

"Now, this is why it is customary to travel within the train," he quipped. She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Well, I'll certainly try to remember that in future."

...

There were telegrams waiting for them at the Magnifique's reception, and Phryne began to open them as soon as they reached their room while Jack relieved her of her coat and hat and hung them alongside his own.

"Marie Leroux remembers a clandestine relationship and a rumour that Yvette left because she was pregnant. Martine Clement says much the same. Those two – thank you, Jack – always were as thick as thieves. Colette Dupont says she has no idea as she never went in for gossip. I remember she always was a hopeless prig. Nothing yet from Emily or Renée."

"That doesn't really get us anywhere." Jack had retrieved their case-file and laid it open on the table. "Are you able to write a translation beneath each message for me? It'd make it easier for me to refer back later."

"Of course." He waited while she wrote, then filed the telegrams neatly, marking each name off on the list as he did so.

"A pity the pensions office didn't have an address for Mademoiselle Benot's family: perhaps we can track that down on Monday."

"Given that they left her to languish in an English workhouse for ten years and she showed no inclination to return to them when she was released I doubt the relationship was particularly close," Phryne remarked, "but it's probably worth a shot."

"Mmm," he agreed, looking at his watch. "Meantime, bath."

"I do believe you're trying to get me undressed," Phryne observed coyly.

He ran his gaze meaningfully over her body with a smile. "Well..."

She brushed against him on her way to the bathroom, shooting him a sultry gaze as she did so. Her meaning was unmistakable, and he followed her eagerly.

...

They dined that night a La Coupole in Montparnasse. Phryne declined to order either frog's legs or snails and Jack was well pleased with his confit du canard, but he had to avert his gaze from the bleeding spectacle that was Phryne's filet mignon. To his anglicised gaze it seemed so undercooked that he half expected it to moo in protest when she stuck her fork in. Dolly Wilde and Natalie Barney were engaging, if somewhat intimidating, table companions and the conversation flowed as freely as the wine, but Jack couldn't help but be distracted by some of the other women in the room. They were as elegantly dressed as Phryne – something which was rare in his experience – and there was something else about them that reminded him of his lover as well. Their speech, their mannerisms, the way they laughed... with a start, he realised that Paris was where Phryne had learned the flirtations and coquetries with which she had from the very beginning alternately intrigued, irritated and inflamed him, and, arguably, most of the men she met. Small wonder she seemed so exotic when observed against the backdrop of Melbourne, or even London, and he couldn't help but be relieved at the thought that he didn't have to live his life surrounded by such women. One Phryne he could – just barely – handle: a city full of them would have been entirely too much of a good thing.

...

-Miss, another telegram for you!- the night concierge called as they made their way back through the foyer of the Hotel Magnifique some hours later.

-Thank you.- Phryne accepted the message but once again carried it unopened until they had reached their room, where she unfolded it eagerly.

"It's from Renée Moreau." She skimmed it quickly and gave a gasp of delight. "Jack, she says she has information that will help us! She wants to know whether it's possible for us to come and visit her in Lille: she says that will be easier." With quick, decisive movements she placed the telegram on the table and went to ring the bell. "I'll have reception send up a touring map, and ask them to arrange a hamper and a car for tomorrow, and accommodation in Lille for the next two nights. I'm not sure how long it'll take to drive up there, but I'm sure we can do it easily in a day..."

Jack felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. Lille. A torrent of memories engulfed him, a swiftly-flowing tide of glimpses and impressions which momentarily drowned out their hotel room, and Phryne's voice, and everything else which served to anchor him in the present moment. He smelt again the stench of the trenches, the nauseating ferment of mud, excrement, decomposition and cordite which had hung in a sickening miasma over the barbaric abattoir of the Somme. He heard again the rattle of the rifles and the scream and blast of the shells, the shouts of men and the shrieks and groans of the dying. He saw Lew, and Jimmy's face grinning at him through a mask of mud and sweat, then contorted in the agonised grimace of a man dying with his guts spilled out. He blinked rapidly and drew a shuddering breath, and was relieved when he heard his own voice speaking to Phryne as the torrent receded to a trickle, staining the present moment but no longer blotting it out.

"It's about a hundred and fifty miles from Paris to Lille. I've no idea what the roads are like these days, but we can probably make it easily in a day. Less if you drive, but I'm not sure that's wise given the state of your hand."

Jack's choked tone alarmed her, and the stricken expression on his suddenly-grey face frightened her even more. "Jack! Here, sit down." She guided him to a seat and he complied woodenly, his eyes not even flicking to her but instead continuing to stare at horrors visible only to him. With shaking hands she reached for the decanter and a glass and poured cognac for him. "Drink this." Again, he obeyed mechanically. "You fought on the Somme." She was shocked that she'd forgotten. Jack nodded, speaking through numbed lips as she refilled his glass.

"Three bloody years. Pozieres, Ypres, Saint Quentin. I don't really remember where else in between. It all looked the same anyway." He drew a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. "Like Hell."

"Jack. Look at me." As he had done with her the night before, she crouched before him and took his hands in hers, gazing into his eyes. "You don't have to come with me. Not if you don't want to. I'd never ask you to go back to a place that's caused you so much grief. You can stay here in Paris, and I'll go to Lille alone."

He seemed to regain a little focus, and shook his head. "Stay here, and do what? My French is appalling, and we've exhausted our leads anyway. I don't know anyone-"

"There's Veronique, Dolly, Sylvia..." she trailed off as he shook his head again.

"No, Phryne, I would rather stay with you." He attempted a smile and gave her left hand a gentle squeeze. "Apart from anything else, I really do think it would be better if you didn't drive." As awful as the prospect of returning to the Somme was, it seemed to him infinitely worse to remain in Paris alone. Without Phryne, he knew, he would drift around the city like a ghost, prey to every demon that lurked in his head. The door was fully open now, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to shut it again in a hurry. She would likely return to find him an alcohol-soaked mess in the nearest bar, and while he knew her well enough to trust that she would understand he nonetheless despised himself when he was drunk and had no wish to inflict that upon her if he could possibly avoid it. Besides, he rationalised, the war had been over for more than a decade. Perhaps it would be good for him to return again to the place that haunted his nightmares and see it as it looked now, in the peace they had won at such a terrible cost.

After some time spent sitting close together, Phryne left him at the table with another glass of cognac while she went about preparing for their departure the next day. She kept a close and worried eye on her lover, who seemed calmer now that the first rush of memory had passed but nonetheless still haunted and lost in his own memories, and returned repeatedly to his side to caress his cheek, tousle his hair, brush a kiss over his lips. He was barely responsive, but when he began to apologise for his distracted air she cut him off gently. "Jack. I understand. It's alright for you to take your time. But I'm right here when you need me, for whatever you need me to do." And she was not particularly surprised when, once she was prepared for bed, he rose and took her in his arms without speaking and made love to her in a silence too profound to be broken by mere words, only to fall weeping against her shoulder at the moment of release.

...

His shouts awoke her just in time to deflect the flailing arm that would otherwise have come smashing down across her face.

"Jack!" She was up in a moment, dodging his arms, trying to get close enough to shake him awake. "Jack! Jack, wake up!" He was tense in her grasp and thrashing about violently enough that her efforts to shake him made no impression. She raised her hand to slap him, but hesitated. She had sworn she would never do that again and, while this blow would be born of love and desperation rather than anger, she was determined to honour that promise. A memory stirred, of a happier awakening on their first morning together in London, and she snaked her hand down and pinched him hard just above the hip. The unexpected sensation brought him to himself with a start and a gasp of pain, and he raised his hands to run across his face.

"Phryne. God." He reached for her, running trembling hands gently across her face and down her shoulders. "Are you alright, love? Did I hurt you? I-"

"Shush," she hushed him. "I'm fine. It's alright, I'm fine. Here," she slipped her arm beneath his shoulder. "Here, sit up a moment." He drew another shuddering breath and complied, moving so that he was leaning against the headboard. She went to fetch the near-empty decanter of cognac and poured for him again. He hesitated, meeting her gaze, and she read in his eyes the fear that he was drinking too much, far more than was healthy. "Come on," she coaxed, "take your medicine like a good boy."

That earned her a very small smile and, more importantly, his compliance. She sat next to him, her arm just brushing his, and was relieved when he began to talk.

"It's all a mess, Phryne. My memories. I don't really recall details: names, dates, places. They all just blur together. I remember I was there. I remember it was... awful. Beyond words. Horrific, appalling, barbaric, depraved... none of them sum it up. I was- I did things no-one should have to do. Things I'm ashamed of, things that haunt me even now." A note of anger entered his tone. "And please don't tell me that I had to, that I had no choice or I was only following orders, because it's not true. I could have lain down and died. It would have been easy: all I had to do was just stand there and wait on any given day and it would all have been over, but I didn't. Because when push came to shove, I wanted to survive. To return home and kiss my wife, and forget all about it." He gave a bitter laugh. "And you can see how well that's worked out for me."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, tears pricking her own eyelids as the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. "I'm sorry," was all she could say.


	23. Requiem

_This has turned into a very long chapter, but as I wrote it I felt it needed to remain as one continuous piece. I've assigned Jack to the 6_ _th_ _Brigade of the 2_ _nd_ _Australian Division, which began active service in August and September 1915._

* * *

 **Part Ten: Requiem**

Given the amount of alcohol Jack had consumed it was perhaps inevitable that Phryne would awaken first the next morning. Jack was lying on his stomach, apparently still deeply asleep, and she eased herself from the bed as gently as possible in order to let him rest a while longer. Fetching a clean glass she ran water from the tap in the bathroom and placed it beside the bed, along with a bottle of aspirin. She rang a maid and ordered coffee, then attended to her morning toilette. She was just putting the finishing touches to her makeup when a groan from the bed indicated that Jack was returning to the land of the living. She applied a quick swipe of lipstick and gave herself a final once-over before going to sit on the mattress beside him.

"How are you feeling?" she asked as he struggled to a sitting position. He rubbed his eyes blearily.

"Rough."

"Here." She proffered the water and aspirin, which he received gratefully.

"Thank you. Do I smell coffee?"

"I'll go pour you a cup, shall I?"

She brought it to him, along with a second cup for herself, and smiled at him over the rim as he took his first reviving gulp.

"Now tell me something, Jack," she teased, determined to at least start the day on a bright note. "I never even knew you drank coffee until we worked that case at Strano's, and yet I can't recall you ordering anything else since we got here. Is there a reason you've gone so thoroughly native on me?"

He couldn't help but smile at that, the sheer normalcy of her words and attitude a welcome respite from the turmoil that had so thoroughly seized him at the thought of returning to the Somme.

"Only that experience with the European interpretation of tea has taught me to embrace the alternative wherever possible." He gave her a light frown. "You should talk. I was just thinking last night at dinner how thoroughly French you are."

Apparently she took that as a compliment, because she preened slightly and gave him a smug "merci."

They finished their coffee in companionable silence, but they could only postpone their inevitable departure for so long.

...

The first part of their journey passed smoothly enough. Jack drove at his usual restrained pace while Phryne sat beside him with the touring map open on her lap, resisting the urge to encourage him to go faster. They would reach the Somme soon enough, but she had plotted them a course which at first took them almost due north to Amiens, well behind the old fighting lines. It was Sunday, and they could hear the church bells chiming as they watched a young bell-boy stow their valises and the generous hamper the Magnifique had furnished for their lunch in the boot of the Renault. As they left Paris they passed into a landscape which seemed almost deserted. The brown fields lay fallow beneath the bare winter trees. There was little reason for anyone to be abroad, and those who were not in church were, for the most part, at home by their fires. They travelled mostly in silence, subdued by the stillness of their surroundings and the oppressive memories which still loomed over them. They both knew that the worst was yet to come.

They entered Amiens around noon and parked in the main square, picnicking in the car rather than braving the winter chill of the streets. Here, too, the Sabbath rest was being faithfully observed, with windows shuttered and hardly a soul stirring out of doors. They ate sandwiches of ham and cheese on crusty white bread accompanied by olives and winter pears, and washed down with coffee from the thermos accompanied by the sweetness of dainty pastries. When they were done and sitting staring through the windowscreen lost in their own thoughts Phryne reached over and squeezed Jack's hand.

"From here we can strike east towards Saint Quentin before heading north, or head north-east through Bapaume. That route takes us through Pozieres. Or, we can go north and then east, but we can't avoid Arras without going miles out of our way. I'm sorry."

He nodded slowly. "Which way's likely to be the quickest?"

She winced slightly. She supposed it had been futile to hope that he wouldn't ask that question. "Probably Bapaume."

He nodded again and drew a shuddering breath. "Right then."

At first the scars were subtle. A gap in the buildings here. Another there. Over there, a pile of spoil, the rubble which had once stood proudly in the places where there was now only empty space. But it didn't take long for that to change. Had they come at another time of year it might have been different, but the barrenness of the winter landscape was pitiless. _There_ the small, slender new branches of the ancient trees could not hide the fact that they had, not so long ago, been reduced to blasted stumps. _There_ the withered winter grass could not hide the remains of coils of rusting barbed wire left on the side of the road. _There_ the subtle rise and fall of the fields resolved itself into a seemingly-endless network of trenches, imperfectly backfilled in order to restore the land to production. And _there_ , and _there_ , and _there_ the terrible wounds left by the merciless pounding of the shells, pits too large to be filled by farmers labouring with far too many of their young workers missing.

Jack's knuckles were white on the steering wheel and each breath he drew was quick and shallow. His eyes darted watchfully from one side of the road to the other, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he waited for the attack that never came. Beside him, Phryne regarded him warily. Not for a moment did she fear that he might harm her, but she was worried that in his heightened state any sudden movement or speech on her part might prove sufficiently alarming that he would lose control of the vehicle and inadvertently send them careering off the road.

The names were coming back to him now, as he passed signpost after signpost that might have been pointing the way back to Hell. Arras, Bapaume, Thiepval, Pozieres... Other names, which didn't appear on any of the signposts he saw but which were nonetheless suddenly _there_ , as bright and clear in his mind as if he had never forgotten them at all: Ypres, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Beaurevoir. And his mates, the names he raised a glass to every year at Anzac and Armistice Day: Jim Hunt, Ed Thomas, Ronnie Sims and good old Lew Brown. He gritted his teeth and swallowed hard, but his hands barely wavered on the wheel which had become his anchor to the present moment. He would see this case through, he vowed. Yvette Benot had died a brutal death, not at the hands of some declared foe on the field of battle, but in a city at peace at the hands of some coward who had taken an unarmed and unsuspecting woman from behind. That death was, in its own way, every bit as obscene as the War, and he would not leave it unavenged.

They passed through the town of Albert, where the golden Virgin had been returned to her position atop the Basilica while below the slow work of rebuilding went on, and out on the other side, and now in addition to his grief and nervous anticipation of attack Jack was aware of a sense of grim irony. For three long years the city of Lille, occupied by the Germans almost from the start of the war, had seemed as distant to him as the moon, and as impossible to reach. Each mile, each foot, of the land over which he now drove with effortless ease, had once been fought for in desperate battle, paid for in blood and agony. What might his mates think if they could see him now, he wondered, who once had struggled at his side and now lay cold in the soil somewhere in the uncaring fields around them?

And then in the midst of winter they saw beside them a field which still bore its crop. On the other side of the wall that bordered the road white wooden crosses spread out in row upon row marking the countless, incalculable ranks of the dead. They both gasped at the unexpected sight, and for a moment Jack's hands wavered on the wheel, causing the Renault to lurch in its course until he had the presence of mind to bring it to a stop on the side of the road.

They climbed from the car and came together beside it, hand in hand like a pair of lost children. Their customary accord meant that there was no need to break their stunned silence. There was probably a gate somewhere, but they moved together to climb over the wall and wander slowly between the graves. Some bore names. Most did not. Most simply bore mute, stark witness to some anonymous young man who had bled out his life in the mud of Flanders. Jack began to shake his head slowly from side to side. "Oh God," he whispered, and then again, "Oh God." Sinking to his knees, pressing his head into his hands, "Oh God, oh God, oh God." Great wracking sobs began to make their way up from deep within him, different from the tears he had wept the night before, the unrestrained, heaving sobs that he had been biting back – big boys don't cry – and drowning in alcohol for the last ten years. Here, in this deserted place, with none but Phryne and the dead to witness them, he gave himself over to them completely.

Phryne sank down on her knees beside him, leaning her head against his as she embraced him, holding him together as he fell apart, her own tears quieter but drawn from her own inner well of darkness and pain. "Oh Jack. Oh, Jack."

He wept for a long, long time before his sobs began to subside and at last he relaxed against Phryne, allowing himself to be comforted. She laid his hat aside and kissed the top of his head, smoothing his hair and murmuring soothing reassurances in a tender voice. This was the comfort that Rosie, unable to accept any sign of weakness in the man she had depended so thoroughly upon, had been unable to give him, and it came as a balm to his weary, tormented soul.

At last he raised his head and looked around, taking in his present surroundings for the first time unclouded by the veil of the past. It was a graveyard. Yes, it was built on a scale that was barely conceivable, but that it had been built at all in this place was, to him, deeply significant. There had been no graveyards back then, in the churned, disputed mud of the battlefield, only, sometimes, a hastily-scratched grave with an improvised memorial above it, liable to be lost or destroyed in the next skirmish. You could not build a graveyard in a battlefield, any more than you could grow crops or rebuild houses. That was something that could only happen when the fighting was over. A graveyard was a place to reflect and remember the dead, and that was something that one had precious little time for in the midst of a war. A graveyard, even one as grotesquely oversized as this one, was irrefutable proof that peace had come.

Peace.  
He let himself reflect upon that word, breathe it in. He had left the battlefield behind after the Armistice, returned to Australia just a few months later, but now he realised that a part of his suffering had been a deep, unrelenting conviction that in fact the war was still going on, and an irrational fear that he might someday, somehow be sent back. Now at last he had before his eyes proof that that simply wasn't so.

But the graveyard was also a place of remembrance, and now he let the words come, haltingly, as he gave his dead mates the eulogy that fate had denied them.

"I joined up at the start of 1915," he began, knowing that he'd be repeating things Phryne already knew, but not bothering to analyse his words. "There were five of us did it together: me, Jimmy Hunt, Ronnie Sims, Ed Thomas, and Lew Brown. Lew was my best mate. We'd all been at school together; he was best man at my wedding. We thought, oh, you know, as lads do. That it'd be an adventure, that we'd be heroes, that we were noble warriors going into battle in the service of king and country." He shook his head at his own naivety. "Ronnie was the first to go. Got dysentery at Gallipoli – we all did – and never recovered. He'd been seasick on the way over: reckon that was what made the difference. We spent three, four months reinforcing First Division before Monro ordered us all off. Probably the only action in the entire bloody war that went according to plan. And then they sent us to the Somme."

He paused, letting those bitter words hang on the air. "We knew as soon as we got here that it'd be bad." He shook his head. "We had no idea. Ed was killed at Pozieres. To this day I don't know what happened to him. We went over the top, and I never saw him again. I hope he went quick." He huffed a small, bitter laugh. "Hell, he could be lying right here for all I know." He looked around. "Ed, if you're out there, you were a good mate. A bloody good mate." He sighed. "So after that it was just the three of us: me, Lew, and Jimmy. Oh, there were other blokes – God knows, we were surrounded by them – but it isn't the same. You know how it is."

Phryne nodded in understanding. She had many friends, but her inner circle was a much smaller group into which only a select few had ever succeeded in making their way. Those bonds were precious, irreplaceable.

"Anyway," Jack went on. "By that time we'd realised that maybe none of us'd be making it home, so we all made promises. Wrote letters to our mothers and our sweethearts, or in my case to Rosie. Made a copy for each of us and put them in our kit bags. We promised that anytime one of us died the others would send a letter, until only one of us was left. And if he went we'd just have to hope someone else had the presence of mind to go through his effects. We'd had a photograph taken before we sailed of all of us together: you can imagine those became pretty important to us. But it seemed for a while Fate was willing to smile on us. We made it though Arras and most of 1917. And then came Ypres."

He paused, and Phryne squeezed his hand in mute encouragement. What was it Freud said? 'A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic.' While she wouldn't have gone so far as to describe Jack's state of mind as 'pathological' she could nonetheless sense that this was a catharsis for him, a blessed releasing of words bottled up too long from what Sassoon had so accurately described as 'those gagged days'.

"We made it through Menin Road and Polygon Wood. Lew took a flesh wound at Poelcapelle; spent a couple of weeks in the field hospital. And Jimmy..."

"Jimmy?" she prompted gently.

"He was just ahead of me when we went over the top at Passchendaele. I don't even know which day it was or how long we'd been there. A shell went off, and he was thrown backwards on top of me. He was... it'd torn his stomach wide open. I remember cradling him in my arms and him looking up at me." He swallowed again, tears filling his eyes. "He knew he was a goner. I couldn't hear- he was speaking to me, or trying to, but with all the noise I couldn't hear what he was trying to say. He died in my arms."

"Oh Jack."

He squeezed her closer and went on. "He died in my arms, and we were wallowing in mud, and I just let him slip down into it. There was nothing else I could do. God, Jimmy, I'm so sorry." He sobbed again, more quietly this time, and then went on. "But Lew and I made it through. Made it through Passchendaele, and Avre, and Amiens – I got wounded badly there, worst wound of the war – "

"That scar on your thigh?" Phryne asked, and he nodded.

"Mmm. Was declared fit for duty just in time for St. Quentin and Beaurevoir. And then that was it. The Armistice was signed and we were warned to prepare for demob." He pressed his lips together, and Phryne sensed that he wasn't quite finished. There was something – or someone – else.

"Lew?" she prompted softly.

"Got the 'flu in December. Died a week before Christmas. I nursed him, best I could, though I was sick as a dog myself. The field hospitals were overwhelmed. Three years of fighting, and he died of the bloody 'flu."

They were silent for a moment. "Do you know why my friend Adelie isn't on our list of contacts?" Phryne asked softly. Jack shook his head. "Because the same thing happened to her. She survived two years in an ambulance unit, and the Armistice Day celebrations-" Jack couldn't help but smile slightly at that "-and then she died of the 'flu in Paris. I meant to visit her grave before we left."

"Why don't we do that when we get back?" Jack suggested, and she nodded.

"I'd like that."

They rose slowly, stiff from so long spent crouched on the cold earth, and began to make their way back to the car, feeling just a little less lost. At the wall, Phryne paused. "Wait here."

He watched as she went to the car and rummaged around in the boot, returning with a bottle of cognac and two glasses. She poured for each of them, then raised her glass over the cemetery.

"To absent friends," she toasted. "Gone, but never forgotten."

"Gone, but never forgotten," Jack echoed, before they both downed their medicine together.


	24. Andante 3

**Part Eleven: Andante**

It felt very late when they arrived in Lille, although in truth the pale midwinter light was only just fading. They entered the city unchallenged and unregarded, and Phryne navigated Jack through the last few twists and turns that took them to the Hotel Grand Bellevue on the Grand' Place itself. It seemed to Jack, still returning to himself after the turmoil of the day, that there was a problem of some sort with their reservation, but as so often happened in the presence of Phryne's wealth, charm, and sheer bloodymindedness, whatever it was disappeared as quickly as it had arisen and they were shown to a room every bit as luxurious as their accommodation in Paris.

"I've asked them to send up a meal," Phryne explained after the bell-boy had left them. "Do you want to take a bath while we wait?" She glanced meaningfully down at his trousers, which were stained with mud from the damp earth of the cemetery. Oddly, the sight of Flanders mud clinging to his clothing excited little reaction in Jack beyond a vague annoyance that his shoes would need cleaning and his coat and trousers laundering, but he realised that he would welcome the relaxation of a bath.

"That sounds very appealing," he admitted. "But what about you? Don't you want to wash up?" Phryne briefly examined her own clothing, which was in no better state than Jack's and, being lighter and of a more delicate fabric, was showing it more. She shrugged.

"Perhaps after dinner. You were the one who did all the driving, after all."

And, he realised suddenly, without her remarking even once on the speed at which they travelled.

She saw Jack safely ensconced in a hot bath and quickly discarded her own outer clothing in favour of one of the soft, warm robes provided by the hotel. Then she made her way to their valises and rummaged swiftly through Jack's. It didn't take her long to find what she was searching for: the Shakespeare anthology from Sylvia's shop. Jack, she had realised long ago, turned to the works of Shakespeare for comfort and guidance much as a religious man might turn to holy writ. It was to Shakespeare that he had turned for words of reconciliation after their fight in Paris. If this anthology contained some words that would comfort him now, then she was determined to find them. All his mates, she thought, listing them mentally. Ronnie, dead at Gallipoli. Jim and Ed on the Somme. And Lew, his best mate, who had died of the 'flu after the fighting had come to an end. For the first time she began to understand why he seemed so isolated, and why he was so desperately afraid of losing her as well. It didn't _excuse_ his behaviour of course, but it went a long way towards explaining it, and that alone was helpful.

Meanwhile, Jack leaned back against the side of the bath and let the warm water wash over him. He felt tired, as though he had spent the day in hard labour rather than driving a car, and wrung out emotionally. But he also felt... what? Relieved, he thought, as he had felt sometimes during the war when he was away from the front lines for a few days R&R. Except this time the feeling was more profound. "The war's over," he whispered quietly to himself, acknowledging a fact that he had never really grasped before that day. Oh, he had known it on an intellectual level, but somehow it had failed to penetrate in any meaningful manner. Today, driving through the Somme, standing amidst the graves of the fallen, the certainty that it truly was over had finally succeeded in taking root within him. "I'm in Lille," he whispered, trying the words out. He opened his eyes and looked around. The belle époque bathroom was gilded and elaborate, as far removed from the filth of the trenches as could be. It was also private: even Phryne was in the other room, and for the first time he allowed himself to remember with a smile the frank masculine humour mingled with awkwardness of a bunch of young army lads bathing together. It was quiet, too, and he leaned his head back and listened to the occasional plunk of water from the tap, the wind at the window, and the soft sounds of the building around him. There had been so much noise, back then. He heard a tap at the door of the suite followed by the sound of it opening and Phryne speaking to someone in the corridor, and realised that their meal had arrived, but lingered for a few moments longer before rising from his pleasant cocoon and dressing.

Phryne was relieved to see Jack emerge from the bathroom looking tired but calmer. He had dressed in his other, clean, trousers and a woollen pullover and she ran her hands over his chest appreciatively. If he was dressed so casually then he evidently had no intention of venturing out, and a quiet night in struck her as being exactly what the doctor ordered. He pulled her closer and hummed in pleasure at the sensation of her body melding so effortlessly with his. For a long moment she leaned into his warmth before pulling back slightly and gesturing towards the table.

"Boef bourguignon," she informed him, "with a nice Bordeaux to wash it down."

It was only as he lifted his glass and sipped appreciatively that he realised that apart from that single glass of cognac by the cemetery he had managed to survive the entire day without turning to alcohol.

...

He slept remarkably well, and awoke early feeling refreshed, and pleased that he had passed the night without a repeat of the previous night's terrors. Phryne was still asleep next to him, and the clock on the mantlepiece indicated that it might be a while before he could reasonably expect her to awaken. He considered trying to go back to sleep but decided he felt too alert to manage it. Reluctant to leave his cosy spot by Phryne's side he cast around for some means of passing the time and noticed his Shakespeare lying on the bedside table. He frowned slightly as he picked it up. He didn't remember putting it there the night before, nor did he remember placing a bookmark in it. Phryne must have been reading while he was in the bath, and he wondered what passage had inspired her sufficiently that she would mark it.

And let their heirs – God, if thy will be so –  
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,  
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!  
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,  
That would reduce these bloody days again,  
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!  
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,  
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!  
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:  
That she may long live here, God say amen!

With a lump in his throat and tender smile he gazed down upon the woman sleeping next to him, who could find so exactly the words that would speak to his heart. 'A treasure from God', Gerard Morin had called her, and he couldn't help but agree.

...

It wasn't far from Vieux Lille to the La Madeleine street which Renée Berger, née Moreau, called home.

-I hope we have not come at a bad time?- Phryne asked, once the appropriate introductions had been made.

-No, not at all. This is in fact a very good time: the children are at the park with their au pair, and Henri is at work. He does not like to remember the War.-

-No-one does,- Phryne replied as her old friend showed them into her neat parlour and went to fetch a tray of coffee and sweet pastries. When she returned she placed it on the table before them and poured before going to fetch a small box which had been sitting on the bookshelf.

-When I received your telegram I went and fetched this box,- she explained, resuming her seat opposite them. -It is where I keep my souvenirs from the war. Such a terrible time, but even so there were some things I wish to remember. This, I think, will be of the most interest to you. It is a letter Yvette wrote to me after she left the Front.- Renée paused and glanced down at her hands. -We were such good friends, so close, but I never heard from her again.- She passed the letter to Phryne, who read aloud, translating for Jack's benefit.

 _My dear Renée,_

 _As I feared, Mother has disowned me. She says that it is not enough that the War has taken my father and brothers. Now it has taken my honour as well. I cannot think what else to do, except to turn to the Magdalenes, and they are certain to take my baby away. So instead I am resolved to go to England. Even if George will not have me, perhaps he will have pity on his child. God willing, I shall write to you again when I am safely across the sea, but if not know that I will always be_

 _Your dearest friend,  
Yvette_

-There is this as well,- Renée added, passing across a photograph. -Yvette gave it to me as a keepsake.-

Phryne laid the letter in her lap and took the picture. "Oh Jack!" she exclaimed as she looked at it, "We've been so blind!"

* * *

'And let their heirs...' King Richard The Third, Act 5, Scene 5.


	25. Scherzo 1

**Part Twelve: Scherzo**

From Jack's perspective, the man in the photograph wearing the uniform of a British army captain and standing with his arm around the much-younger Yvette Benot could have been anyone, but Phryne was in no doubt even before she turned the picture over and translated the brief message on the back.

"' _To my darling Yvette – a souvenir of our romance. I shall never forget you – George'._ She didn't name her child after the king; she named him after his father. George. George Mortimer." Her eyes were wide with sorrow as she sought her fiancé's gaze. "She met her killer on my own doorstep."

There were hasty translations and farewells, and Renée swiftly agreed to allow them to take the letter and the photograph if it would help them to bring Yvette's killer to justice, and then they were leaving. But at the door, Renée laid her hand on Phryne's arm to detain her.

-What is it?- Phryne asked gently. Renée's reply was halting, pained.

-She was my dearest friend,- she said, -and I forgot all about her. You say she was in a workhouse, and that George Mortimer murdered her. She died alone and forgotten.- Her eyes filled with tears. -I should have remembered her.-

Phryne felt her own eyes fill, and squeezed her former comrade's hand. -We all forgot,- she replied. -We all share the blame.-

She walked to the car and allowed Jack to drive them back to the Bellevue.

...

"So we've established who," Jack said, once they were back in their room and looking over their file once again, "and we know how, but why? Why kill her now, after all this time? Why not when she showed up in England, pregnant? Unless he didn't know she was there."

"Or..." Phryne searched through the folder until she found the newspaper clipping. "I thought this was significant because it was what prompted her to get in touch with me, but I'm not the only person to appear in the Society pages. Look."

She was pointing to another photograph, slightly further down the page. The gentleman in it was older, but undoubtedly the same man who had his arm around Yvette in Renée's photograph. "'Aspiring M.P. The Honourable Mr. George Mortimer nails his political colours to the mast," Jack read aloud, "organising a gala dinner for fellow workhouse guardians to which a number of prominent Conservatives were also invited. Mr. Mortimer has been a vocal opponent of the Local Government Act, and no doubt politics was the hot topic of the evening.' So he was a workhouse guardian."

"And I'll bet I know which workhouse was his."

Jack nodded slowly. "His French fling shows up pregnant. He isn't about to marry her, and he doesn't want to risk having his indiscretion exposed, so he sticks her in the workhouse at Poplar and forgets all about her."

"But then, ten years later, they let her out," Phryne picked up the story, "and by now he's a man with political ambitions."

"And not just any ambitions." Jack continued. "He stands for morality, decency, and good old-fashioned family values."

"But with his own illegitimate baby's skeleton hidden in the cupboard." Phryne's voice trembled slightly as she added that part. "And his former mistress destitute in the East End."

"So he paid..." Jack thumbed through the file until he found the name, "Sid Evans to put the wind up her. Convince her to keep her mouth shut."

"But then she saw me in the paper and remembered." Phryne pointed to the caption underneath. "'The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher with her antipodean mystery man, believed to be divorced policeman Mr. John 'Jack' Robinson. Miss Fisher has quite the reputation in her native Melbourne for her escapades as a private detective.' It was all right there for her. The problem, George Mortimer, and the solution, her old friend the private detective and her fiancé the policeman."

"So when their paths crossed on your doorstep – and we still haven't established exactly what Mr. Mortimer was doing there – he realised that he was in imminent danger of being exposed and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. He knew from Evans where Mademoiselle Benot was living. He lay in wait for her, and when she walked down that alleyway he seized his chance and cut her throat. He took her handbag to make it look like a robbery, and my guess is he threw it into the river at the first opportunity, along with the murder weapon." He heaved a deep sigh. "But how do we prove it?"

If he was expecting an answer from Phryne, he was disappointed. "I have no idea," she admitted. "This is normally the part where I'd hand the case over to you."

"And normally, in a case like this, I'd send my constables out to canvas the area with a copy of Mortimer's picture. Perhaps it's time we made another visit to the Limehouse Police Station."

Phryne made a face. "Do you really think Sergeant Cooper-"

"I think Sergeant Cooper has a superior officer. Who with a week-old unsolved murder on his desk might just be willing to listen to us if we turn up with a stack of evidence and make enough of a fuss in the middle of his station."

Phryne tilted her head on one side, considering. "He might be willing to listen to you," she conceded grudgingly, "but everyone knows that nothing a woman says could possibly be of any use."

"'Everyone', Miss Fisher?"

She couldn't help but smile slightly at that, and went to slip her arms around his waist. "Alright, not 'everyone'. You're one of the good ones, Jack Robinson."

"One of the lucky ones is more like it," he replied, returning the file to the table and allowing himself to be thoroughly distracted from the case in ways that he never would have done had they been back in his office in Melbourne.

...

The following morning saw them on the road back to Paris. This time Phryne insisted that her hand was sufficiently healed to permit her to drive – for goodness' sake, how did he think she would pilot the plane home tomorrow if it wasn't? – and Jack braced himself for a speedy journey. As the fields of the Somme flashed by he couldn't help but reflect upon just how swiftly his feelings towards them were changing. This would probably never be a landscape that he could gaze upon with an untroubled heart, but now at least he could look at it with deep sorrow and compassion rather than near-overwhelming fear and horror. There were more people abroad now that Sunday was over, and he found himself marvelling at the tenacity of men willing to return and work the soil upon which they had fought and in which no doubt many of their own people – brothers, sons, fathers, friends – were buried.

"'Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again/ That she may long live here, God say Amen!'" he murmured to himself.

"What was that?" Phryne asked, no doubt slightly deafened by the tortured whine of the engine. The Magnifique's Renault was a sound vehicle, but it could hardly compete with the Hispano for speed. Not that that was preventing Phryne from trying.

"Just thinking aloud," Jack replied. Suddenly realising that he wanted conversation he asked "Exactly how well do you know Mr. Mortimer?"

"He's the third son of an Earl," Phryne replied. "No title of his own, of course, but wealthy and from an excellent family. After I had my coming out in 1920 my parents made every opportunity to throw the two of us together, no doubt hoping for a match. And since women with an estate and a title coming to them are a comparative rarity George was only too happy to go along with it, until I convinced him I wasn't interested."

"And how did you manage that?" He glanced her way and saw her lips curve into a satisfied smirk.

"We'd had a... rather intense discussion, I suppose you might call it, about a husband's rights and a woman's place, and he made the mistake of beginning a sentence with the words 'when you are my wife.'"

"And what was the rest of the sentence?" Jack asked.

"Haven't the foggiest. I'd had enough by then, so I stepped very close to him, shoved my dagger into his groin and told him that if I were ever unfortunate enough to find myself married to a pig like him I'd make sure that he'd never be able to consummate it."

Jack couldn't quite repress a snort of laughter at that, picturing the shocked expression on Mortimer's face when he realised that she was completely serious. Phryne smiled back.

"He rather went off me after that. Found another baron's daughter to marry, although I believe she has a brother so he didn't quite get what he was hoping for."

"On the other hand, he presumably managed to keep his existing assets intact."

Phryne smirked again. "Presumably."

...

They rolled back into Paris with enough time for a visit to the cemetery in Monparnasse, where Phryne laid a small slab of high-quality chocolate on Adelie's grave. As they wandered back to the car, she explained. "We were bogged down. Covered in mud, freezing cold and starving. I started to cry. And Adelie gave me her last piece of chocolate."

Jack slipped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "A friend worth remembering," he remarked softly.

"They all were," Phryne replied, Renée's words still resonating in her heart.


	26. Scherzo 2

_A huge thank-you to everyone who has taken the time to review this fic: it really does mean a lot. Special thanks to Bellairian, who has been with this fic from the beginning and has given feedback and support from behind the scenes; to RCGgymratmom, who has recently picked it up and paid me the enormous compliment of taking the time to review each chapter as she read it; to Vavavoom7, my friend and fellow-fan 'IRL', whom I've recently lured into our crazy world; and, always, FoxFireside, who has been with me almost since the beginning._

* * *

Their plans for a swift departure from Paris early the following morning hit a snag in the form of the Avro Avian's starter system. No matter how enthusiastically Jacques yanked on the propeller the engine refused to catch, and in the end Phryne and Jack disembarked from the plane and retreated to the relative warmth and comfort of the airport where they could huddle over coffee while the mechanics consulted, tinkered, considered, swore, and started all over again. Finally, after two hours, they were summoned back onto the airfield and the plane spluttered into life.

Mr. Page was waiting patiently with the Rolls when they finally touched down and passed through Customs in Croydon, considerably later than Phryne's original estimated arrival time, and his slight smile and sag of relief as he greeted them was the only visible sign of just how disconcerted he had been by the delay.

"I think this finally settles it," Phryne commented as her butler drove them back to Kensington. "It's the slow route home for us, I'm afraid, Jack."

"Mmm, I assumed as much," Jack agreed. "What will you do with the plane?"

Phryne shrugged. "Sell it for scrap, I suppose. The market's a tad flooded at the moment: everyone's getting rid of their toys, so I can't imagine I'll be overwhelmed with offers." She shook herself briskly. "Still, I'm sure there'll be others on the market when we get back to Melbourne. I've never quite got over Victor Freeman reclaiming his Tiger-Moth."

Mr. Page took their cases to their room while Mrs. Page served them a late, and very welcome, luncheon in the dining room. They were just starting the main course when Mr. Page, at Phryne's request, returned with his message book.

"You have several social calls to return," he began. "Mr. Mortimer called again, and left this," he placed an envelope with Phryne's name on it beside her plate as she and Jack exchanged significant looks, but continued before she could examine it, "Miss Sharpe wishes you to know that the documents you requested are ready for collection at your convenience. The dresses you ordered were delivered yesterday and are in your room. And your mother wishes to know what time she should expect you at Norfolk House on Friday."

"They engagement party!" Phryne cried in dismay. "I'd completely forgotten about it, and it's this Saturday! Jack, how on Earth are we going to solve this case in a single day? We still have nothing to tie Mortimer to the actual crime."

Jack sighed and shook his head. "We can't. And if we make too many enquiries tomorrow, only to leave town for three days, we risk giving him the opportunity to evade us." He looked her straight in the eye, knowing that she wasn't going to like what he had to say next. "We're going to have to hand the case over to the police. Tomorrow."

Phryne said nothing, only thinned her lips and stabbed her knife into her meal. "Thank you, Mr. Page," she said tightly, and the butler gratefully accepted his cue to withdraw from the suddenly-tense atmosphere.

Jack sighed again. "I know you don't like it, Phryne, but they can't all be as bad as Cooper. Don't you have a... well, a London-based me you can turn to?"

"Yes, I'm sitting at the dining-table with him," she quipped, then sighed in turn. "My investigations in London were never like ours, Jack. A missing necklace, a deceitful husband... trivial, really, and almost never involving the police. I don't have anyone we can go to."

"Then we'll just have to try our luck at Limehouse," Jack replied. "I suggest we spend the rest of the day putting our case-notes in order and present them at the station first thing in the morning. Meantime," he gestured to the envelope which was still lying beside her plate, "why don't you see what brought our prime suspect to your door?"

Phryne used a clean knife to slit the envelope and began to read aloud.

' _My Dearest Phryne,  
Forgive the liberty that I take in writing to you on such a personal note. I had hoped to meet with you in person, but it appears that that is not possible.  
I have received your mother's invitation to your engagement party, and as an old and dear friend,' _

Phryne snorted,

' _one whom I hope you will regard in the light of an older brother, I fear that I would be remiss if I did not take the time to speak with you.  
Phryne, I realise that the heart of a woman is a fickle and tender thing, and easily led astray, but I must urge you most strongly to reconsider your engagement. Having made a number of enquiries about Mr. Robinson-'_

Phryne broke off, her expression both horrified and furious, and sought Jack's gaze.

"Go on," he prompted, able to guess what kind of opinion a man like Mortimer might have of him. After a pause and an apologetic smile, she did so.

' _-Mr. Robinson, I cannot in any way condone this match. Whatever your beginnings, you are a woman of excellent breeding and considerable wealth. Mr. Robinson, however, is significantly humbler by both birth and means, and I cannot help but suspect that he sees this marriage as no more than a means of advancement. Furthermore, you may be unaware that he has previously been married, and that his marriage ended in divorce. Any man who shows such inconstancy once should not be trusted to remain constant on subsequent occasions. Would you really risk seeing your assets bestowed upon a mistress and her brood, and you yourself left destitute?'_

He might as well have been describing himself and the fate he had inflicted on Yvette, the detectives reflected bitterly.  
 _  
If I paint a dire picture, it is only out of concern for you, Phryne. Once again, I beg you: reconsider.  
I shall be at your engagement party, and though I shall not in any way seek to disrupt an event which I can only regard as the generous gift of loving parents acting against their better judgement, know that should you need it I shall, without hesitation, offer you a brother's succour.  
I remain your most affectionate friend,  
The Honourable Mr. George Mortimer.'_

Phryne was on her feet, pacing restlessly about the room. "Why, of all the pompous, arrogant, self-righteous-"

"Murder suspects," Jack finished for her. He was no happier with the content of the letter than Phryne, but years of service as a police officer had left him accustomed to being the subject of low opinions even before he had faced the humiliation of the magistrate's court, and it wasn't as if Mortimer's accusations and insinuations were anything unexpected. "Who has just provided us with a very convenient sample of his handwriting, as well as an admission that he has previously visited your house. So please," he plucked the letter from her hand, "try to resist the urge to destroy a key piece of evidence." He smoothed the letter and laid it aside on the table, then opened his arms to her. "It makes no difference, Phryne," he murmured soothingly, once he was holding her close. "We knew people would object to our relationship, for all sorts of reasons. What does it matter, as long as we know we love one another?"

"Omnia vincit amor?" Phryne murmured softly in response, leaning gratefully into Jack's embrace. Reading Mortimer's words to him had frightened her. What if he agreed? What if hearing those vile objections voiced aloud were enough to convince her noble, honourable Inspector that the honourable thing to do in this case was to renounce her, break off their engagement, and end their relationship? Those fears were irrational, she told herself firmly. A man who spent all he had – and his funds, she knew, must be running desperately low by now – to sail halfway around the world to win a woman's hand wouldn't give her up just because a man he didn't even know had decided to sling a little mud in their direction. And Jack's hand was rubbing such soothing circles on her back... After a moment she gave a sigh and let her tension drain away, straightening to look her fiancé in the eye and receive a tender kiss on the lips. "Thank you," she said, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"C'mon," he gestured towards the table. "Lunch is getting cold."

...

Shortly before eight o'clock on Thursday morning Detective Inspector Lancelot Jones neared the Limehouse Police Station, and groaned.

"Inspector!" the familiar figure armed with notebook and pencil waiting on the doorstep hailed him before he could turn and make for the back door. "Inspector, do you have anything to say about the Evie Bennet case?"

"C'mon, Nev." Lance drew a deep breath and reminded himself that a free press was a necessary part of a free society. "Any new information'll be on my desk, won't it?"

"What do you have to say to people who are concerned that the lack of police movement in this case is due to Evie Bennet's poverty?"

"That they should stop letting your bloody paper do their thinking for them." He had known Neville Peters a long time. He wasn't a bad person – in fact, he had helped Lance break more than a few cases – but he was a dyed-in-the-wool red-ragger, a rabble-rouser, and like a dog with a bone when he smelt a good story. And from a newspaper-man's perspective Evie Bennet's death, and the failure of the police to arrest her killer, was an excellent story.

Now he brushed past Nev and into the station. The reporter wouldn't follow him, not after the time Lance had chucked him in the cells for a couple of hours for making a public nuisance of himself, and phoned an 'anonymous' tip through to several competing papers to disclose the arrest of a reporter for making threats against the police (which, in a roundabout way, Neville had done, the threat being to 'wait until my readers hear about this!'). He closed the door on Nev's persistent questions with a sense of relief.

Evie Bennet. Letting Cooper take the initial lead on that case had been a mistake. Cooper was five years from retirement, and in Lance's estimation that was about ten years too long. But it had seemed straightforward enough on the surface, one that not even Cooper could muck up too badly. Except that he had. If The Honourable Miss Fisher's card hadn't fallen out of the file – into which Cooper had no doubt stuffed it as being the most convenient way to get it off his hands – her name and the fact that she had information pertinent to the case would never had come to his attention. Cooper had made no notes on their interview, and when pushed had been able to recall very little beyond the fact that she'd said Evie Bennet was French, and they'd both been ambulance drivers in the War, and that her fiancé ("Jack Robinson, if you like that for a name. Might as well have called himself John Smith") had claimed to be an Australian police inspector.

Fortunately, Constable Gosling was a tad more perceptive and had recalled that Inspector Robinson had identified himself as a member of the _Victorian_ constabulary. Lance re-read the telegram that had arrived from Melbourne the previous day.

 _CONFIRM DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JOHN 'JACK' ROBINSON MEMBER VICTORIAN CONSTABULARY CITY SOUTH POLICE STATION MELBOURNE. ON EXTENDED LEAVE ENGLAND. TRAVELLING WITHOUT CREDENTIALS. KNOWN ASSOCIATE THE HONOURABLE MISS PHRYNE FISHER. GOOD OFFICER._

It was the last two words that had sealed it for Lance. When he had tried Miss Fisher's Kensington residence a few days before he had been informed that both she and the Inspector were in Paris, where they were no doubt making far more headway on the case than Cooper had. Now, with confirmation not only of the Inspector's identity but also of his competence received, he was resolved to try and contact them again.

"Constable!" he called to Gosling, stuffing several relevant sheets of paper into a folder and rising from his desk.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Come with me. We're going to pay a visit to the fancy part of town." And then, as Gosling obediently picked up his hat and moved towards the doors. "Via the back entrance, if you don't mind, Gosling; let's not hand Nev a lead on a silver platter."


	27. Scherzo 3

Just before nine o'clock on Thursday morning, Phryne and Jack were at the dining table eating a breakfast that was, in Phryne's opinion, decidedly too early, and reading the morning's papers. When in London Phryne subscribed to two of the dailys: the Times, because it was respectable, and the Mirror, because it was not.

"Yvette's case seems to be getting a lot of coverage from the Mirror," she remarked, taking a sip of her coffee. "Page three: 'Police No Closer To Solving Horror East End Slaying.' Followed by 'Are The Police Ignoring the Poor?' and 'Is This Another Ripper'?"

"The Times is more concerned with the possible implications of the current financial crisis for the MacDonald government," Jack replied. "The analysis is extensive, but thus far..." he flipped a couple of pages to confirm, "Miss Benot has failed to garner a mention."

The sound of the doorbell interrupted them before Phryne could deliver her tart rejoinder to that. "Who on Earth could be calling at this time of day?" she wondered instead.

Jack shrugged, folding his paper and setting it aside. "I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Page is coming to tell us."

"My apologies for the interruption, Miss, Sir," the butler began, as he entered a moment later. His apologetic air seemed out of proportion to the minor disruption of an early visitor, and Phryne's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Yes?"

"An Inspector Jones is at the door asking to speak with you. He says it's regarding the Bennet case?"

Jack gave Phryne a meaningful look. Evidently his prediction that Cooper's commanding officer would be ready to step in by now was correct. She returned his look with one of her own, silently informing him that even broken clocks were right twice a day so he shouldn't get too cocky. He looked away and sipped his tea to hide his amusement. Phryne turned back to her butler.

"Go on."

Mr. Page winced slightly. "He called a few days ago, Miss, but when I informed him that you were in Paris he indicated that it wasn't important and declined to leave his card. I'm afraid I didn't write it down, and omitted to mention it yesterday."

Phryne considered this for a moment. Mr. Page really should have known better (and, she couldn't help but think, Mr. Butler _would_ have), but Jones was here now and there was no use taking her butler to task over what was, after all, a comparatively minor oversight, and one which this Inspector had no doubt encouraged. She huffed her annoyance, then gave a slight shrug. "I'm sure he had his reasons. And even if he didn't, what's done is done. Show him up."

With a slight sigh of relief, Mr. Page nodded acknowledgement of the instruction and returned to the foyer. A moment later he returned with Inspector Jones and his constable.

Introductions were made, and Phryne raked the Inspector with an assessing look. She had invited Jones to take a seat, but he had declined and stood calmly under her gaze. He was of medium height and middle age, his hair touched with grey at the temples, his build stocky but with no trace of middle-aged spread. He had an air of competence and quiet confidence that suggested he knew what he was about and reminded her rather of Jack, and she made a mental note not to let any perceived similarity draw her into letting her guard down.

"So, Inspector," she began. "What brings you to my door?"

"I came across your card in a case-file. The accompanying notes were brief-" to the point of nonexistence, but he felt no need to go into that "-but they indicated that you might have information that could be of assistance."

"And what case-file was that?" That earned her a reproving look from Jack, but she was determined not to give an inch until she was satisfied that Jones wasn't simply going to hand their hard-won evidence over to Cooper, who might very well use it to wipe his arse.

"The Evie Bennet murder. Although the notes indicate that you knew her by another name?"

"Yvette Benot." Jack decided to weigh in. Phryne in a pique could keep them at this all morning. "She was French. As your sergeant's notes should have told you," he added pointedly. He might be more willing than Phryne to make use of his British colleagues, but that didn't mean that he'd forgotten – or forgiven – Cooper's attitude. To his satisfaction the Inspector inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Sergeant Cooper's handling of your information left something to be desired. He has been spoken to. And I've received a telegram from your Commissioner confirming that you are indeed a detective inspector with the Victorian constabulary. I'm sure you understand that we couldn't simply take your word for it."

Jack couldn't quite repress a small smile and a sigh of relief at that incidental piece of information and glanced at Phryne, who looked every bit as pleased as he felt. His expression changed. Glance towards Jones, head-tilt, brow-quirk: _I think we can trust him. You?_

Phryne replied with narrowed eyes, chin lowered: _I'm not convinced._

Jack, raised eyebrow, slight shrug: _We leave for your parents' tomorrow. It's not as if we have another option._

Phryne, eye-roll, pressed lips: _Fine, but if you're wrong don't expect me to refrain from saying 'I told you so.'_

Jack, brief head-nod: _Then we're agreed. Good._

Up until that point, Lance hadn't been certain exactly what he was dealing with. A bored police inspector and his rich dilettante girlfriend? Two backwoods colonials playing at cops and robbers? His uncertainty was the reason he had declined to leave his card with Miss Fisher's butler the first time he had called: if Robinson was impersonating a police officer, and if Miss Fisher was simply a frivolous socialite looking for the titillation of a brush with the law – or if their actions were more nefarious – then the last thing he wanted to do was give them warning that a real police officer was about to turn up and ask some pointed questions about their knowledge of, and involvement with, a serious murder investigation. But now, observing their silent exchange, he recognised them for what they were: a well-oiled and extremely efficient investigative machine. As he watched, Inspector Robinson drained his cup, rose smoothly from the table and walked around it towards the door, trailing his fingers lightly across his fiancée's shoulders as he passed.

"I'll go and fetch our case-notes," he said. "Miss Fisher can fill you in on our progress so far."

Jones nodded. "That'll work." Still, Robinson's departure left him facing Miss Fisher's somewhat unnerving gaze. After a moment, however, she gave herself a slight shake and seemed to commit to action.

"As I told your sergeant-" Exactly what _had_ that idiot Cooper done, Lance wondered, to elicit such an acid tone? "-I met Yvette Benot in 1917, when we were both serving with the French Women's Third Ambulance Unit in Belgium, under the Honourable Miss Barbara Lowther." Lance glanced back to ensure Gosling was writing this down and was gratified to see him scribbling furiously. "She left shortly after I joined the Unit. We've subsequently confirmed that she was pregnant by the 'Honourable'" – Lance did not miss the derisive stress which she placed upon that word – "Mr. George Mortimer, then a captain with the British Army; that she was disowned by her family; and that she came to England following Mr. Mortimer, who had been invalided back here. From there she ended up in the Poplar Workhouse, where she gave birth to a son, who later died. We believe that Mortimer, who was a workhouse guardian, arranged to have her held there. When she was released earlier this year he became concerned that she would speak out – which was a threat to both his personal reputation and his political ambitions – and sent a workhouse officer, Sid Evans, to intimidate her into keeping her mouth shut. Which worked, until she recognised my picture in the paper. She came here, hoping to enlist my assistance in exposing Mortimer."

She paused, and for the first time Lance saw her expression soften. Regret, he wondered?

"It was her misfortune to arrive while I was out, and at almost exactly the same time George Mortimer decided to pay a social call." Her tone indicated that the call had been anything but social. "We think he decided he had to silence her. That was when he made up his mind to kill her."

Behind Jones, Jack re-entered, carrying the folder containing their evidence, and took up the narrative. "We think he lay in wait outside her address and took advantage of the brief moment when she was away from witnesses in the alleyway to cut her throat, then took her handbag and threw it into the river along with the murder weapon before leaving Poplar as swiftly as possible. We just can't prove it." He resumed his seat, and gestured for Jones to sit also. This time, as Gosling continued writing swiftly behind him, he accepted the invitation.

For a moment the two policemen eyed one another across the table. Then Jones opened the folder he had brought with him and withdrew a police sketch, sliding it across the table to Jack while Phryne craned around to see.

"The injury that sent Mr. Mortimer back to Blighty," he began, "it wouldn't by any chance happen to have involved the loss of two fingers on his left hand? Because I've got witnesses who place this gent right outside Miss Bennet – Madamioselle Benot's – building shortly before she was killed."

The sketch was imperfect, but the face was undoubtedly that of George Mortimer. Jack stiffened at the description of Mortimer's wounds and shot Phryne another swift look. She had never mentioned exactly what his injuries were, and of course he _could_ have lost his fingers in the line of duty, but still... He shook the thought away. He already knew that Mortimer was a coward and a blackguard; knowing that he might have resorted to blowing his own fingers off in order to receive a medical discharge didn't change anything.

"That's George," Phryne confirmed coldly. Shaken from his reflections, Jack retrieved the newspaper clipping and the photograph from their folder for comparison.

"We made the same identification," Jones agreed, "and the Master of the Poplar Workhouse – pardon me, 'Institution' – has confirmed Mortimer's connection to the House. Been trying to track him down for the last couple of days, but it's proving difficult. He isn't at his London residence, and he hasn't been seen down in Oxford, either. It doesn't look like he's deliberately evading us, but that doesn't make it any easier."

"And if you make too many enquiries he may realise you're onto him and abscond before you can apprehend him," Jack agreed.

"And even when we do, there's no guarantee we'll get a conviction," Jones added. "We can prove his motive, and his connection to the victim, and that he was in Poplar that night, but we can't prove he actually did it."

"I'm not so sure I want to see him convicted," Phryne remarked. All three men glanced at her in surprise, but her tone had been vicious. "He killed Yvette because he'd rather commit murder than see his hypocrisy exposed. Whether he's convicted or not, this is the kind of case the gutter press lives for. No," she smiled coldly, "I think I'd rather see him acquitted and left to pick up the pieces of his life with his reputation in tatters and his political career dead in the water."

"You're a hard woman, Miss Fisher," Inspector Jones remarked, in awed tones, "but I have to say, I rather agree with you. In fact," he added, "once we have Mortimer in custody I can think of just the person to talk to to get the ball rolling on exposing all his dirty little secrets."

"And as far as locating him goes," Phryne added, "I may not know where he is now, but I have a fairly good idea where he's planning to be this Saturday night."


	28. Climax 1

_Knowing absolutely nothing about what happens at a formal ball, I did a LOT of reading for this chapter, but I can't guarantee I've got it right. A ball would typically start late in the evening, broke for supper, and could run to breakfast the following morning(!). During the first part of the evening the hostess, and her daughter if the Ball was in her honour, would greet the guests as they arrived, while the gentlemen of the household (in this case the Baron and, because he's Phryne's fiancé, Jack) ensured things were going smoothly in the ballroom, smoking room etc._

 _As each gentleman asked a lady for a dance he would write his name on her dance card, which listed all the dances planned for the night._

 _Types of Dance:  
_ _The Grand March: not really a dance but more of a parade set to music which signalled the formal start of a ball. Couples would promenade around the ballroom in order of precedence.  
Waltz: dance in 3:4 time, one of the most popular dances.  
Lanciers, Quadrille: types of square dance, usually for four couples.  
Polka: lively dance of Bohemian origin.  
Schottische: a slow polka.  
Foxtrot: a dance in 4:4 time with an uneven quick-quick-slow rhythm.  
Redowa: a lively waltz of Czech origin, characterised by leaping and turning.  
Varsouvienne: a slow, graceful dance of Polish origin._

 _Based on the vintage dance cards I've seen, the waltz, schottische and lanciers were the most popular dances. The varsouvienne in particular seems to have been unpopular, typically appearing only once or twice in a program which would include twenty or more dances, while the redowa appears multiple times on some cards but not at all on others._

* * *

 **Part Thirteen: Climax**

Lady Margaret had insisted on separate rooms for her daughter and her fiancé, in deference to her other overnight guests. They could hardly object but Phryne was nonetheless glad when Jack appeared in her room as she was putting the finishing touches to her appearance. She dismissed the maid and turned her full attention upon her lover, resplendent in full formal eveningwear to the point where she rather regretted that she couldn't tear the impeccable layers of black and white apart and ravish him on the spot. The gleam in his eyes as and she glided towards him in the shimmer and swish of midnight-blue beads which she had had made especially for this evening suggested that he felt much the same and he couldn't quite repress a low, almost feral, growl of approval as she came to a stop in front of him and straightened his already-perfectly-straight bow-tie.

"Do you remember Guy and Isabella's engagement party?" she asked.

What he remembered most vividly was the look of shock and helplessness on her face as she held Janey's ribbon out to him, and their mounting panic when they realised that Jane was quite possibly in Foyle's clutches, but he knew that wasn't what she was referring to.

"You have no idea how close I came..." he trailed off, placing his hands on her slender waist. "But it wouldn't have been right, Phryne. Not like that. You were so upset over Foyle, and I'd spent most of the day watching my marriage disappear. It wouldn't have been right." She nodded her understanding and rested her hands on his chest, looking pensive. He frowned slightly. "What's wrong?"

She sighed. "Tonight's likely to be difficult, Jack. These people here, they're my mother's friends, not mine. And most of them aren't really 'friends' at all, not the way it's normally meant. But a Baron's the lowest-ranked member of the nobility barring a baronet, and being from Collingwood, Australia, doesn't do us any favours: a lot of the people here tonight will find all manner of ways to remind us of that, and to remind you that you're nothing but a colonial thief-taker trespassing on their territory."

To her surprise, Jack seemed unconcerned. "And that's _before_ we arrange to have one of their own marched away in handcuffs." He chuckled softly. "Don't worry, Phryne. I'm not expecting tonight to be anything less than an ordeal. But we only have to face it once and it'll be over. This time Monday we'll be back in London."

"How can you be so calm about this?" she asked.

He considered for a moment. "Well, I've spent most of the last week remembering in vivid detail a time in my life when I feared that I might die, and die horribly, at any moment. It puts things in perspective." He smiled. "And however awful this may be, it's still our engagement party, which is something I never dared dream I would see. And I'm facing it with you, which would make almost anything more bearable." He cupped her cheek, eyes shining, and she couldn't help but smile at the love she saw there.

"When you put it like that..." She trailed off as he kissed her gently before looking at his watch.

"We're due downstairs. Chin up, Miss Fisher: we have a job to do."

...

She stood beside her mother at the door to the ballroom as a steady stream of 'Honourables' seasoned with a selection of 'Right Honourables', 'Sirs', 'Barons' and 'Ladys' were announced. She smiled and said 'thank you' as each one paused briefly to offer their congratulations before heading for the ballroom, where the orchestra was already playing a selection of incidental music. She glanced at the clock and then around for Jack. Her mother had insisted on a Grand March at ten o'clock, which would at least signal the end of a solid hour of social pleasantries. As though by magic he appeared, catching her eye around the latest arrivals. Once they had moved on he approached the women.

"Lady Margaret, I don't suppose I could borrow Phryne for a few minutes?" He smiled winsomely, the lovestruck fiancé seeking a private moment with his beloved, and Lady Margaret's romantic heart could not refuse, even though Phryne really was supposed to be there to greet each guest in person.

"Of course."

Jack drew her to one side, his smile replaced by a more serious expression as soon as they were out of everyone's sight. "Any sign of him?"

Phryne shook her head. "No, and my dance card's filling up fast."

Jack nodded, thinking. Their plan hinged on Mortimer attending the ball, and remaining long enough for one of them to telephone Jones and his men, who were waiting at the pub in the village. To ensure that he did Phryne had intended to promise him one of the last dances of the evening, knowing that he wouldn't miss the opportunity for a 'quiet word'. Now she showed Jack her card, which was indeed filling up fast. He skimmed quickly over it and nodded again.

"If you have to, let him have the last schottische instead of me." He caught her eye and smiled. "You'll still have me for the Grand March, the second lanciers, a foxtrot, the varsouvienne, and two waltzes, including the last dance. We both know the only reason we can get away with that many is that this is our engagement party." He slipped a rubber from his pocket and ghosted it lightly over his name where it appeared by the schottische in question, leaving it doubtful whether it had been erased or not. "There. You can tell him we changed it for the sake of propriety: he can't reasonably argue with that, but to anyone else it'll look like I just wrote my name more lightly for some reason."

She nodded, satisfied with the plan, and glanced back over her shoulder. "I'd better get back to Mother." She sighed. "How much longer until the March?"

Jack looked at his watch. "Only ten minutes. Then we have the first half of the dances, then supper. Mortimer's bound to be here by then." He pecked her lightly on the cheek. "I'd better go see what your father's up to. I'll see you in ten minutes for the March."

He escorted her back to her mother's side, and she watched as he returned to the ballroom, only to turn back just in time to see George Mortimer and his wife walking towards her. They greeted Abigail Mortimer first, exchanging a few pleasantries before turning to her husband.

"Lady Margaret."The Honourable Gentleman was all formality as he bowed over the Baroness' hand. "And Phryne."

"George." She plastered on an especially bright smile and permitted him to kiss her on each cheek, firmly resisting the urge to simply draw her dagger from her garter and stab him through his worthless heart right then and there. Jack would not approve, and even Dot might struggle to get that much blood out of her dress.

"I hope you still have a spot on your dance card for me?"

"Hmm." She opened her card. "What about the second to last waltz?" She cranked her smile up a few notches until she was effectively baring her teeth at him. "As I recall you were an excellent waltzing partner." As she had hoped, her flattery prevented him for asking for an earlier dance, and ensured that Jones would have plenty of time to make his way to Norfolk House. Mortimer signed his name and escorted his wife into the ballroom.

After that there were only a few more guests before the clock struck ten and Lady Margaret and her daughter prepared for the Grand March.

...

Jack lingered by the door of the ballroom, keeping his expression neutral to conceal his anxiety. Phryne had endeavoured several times to explain the order of precedence to him, but he was still baffled and relying on her to guide him to the correct spot. In spite of the reassurance he had offered her in her bedroom he really didn't relish the prospect of looking too big an oaf in front of so many people. He caught a whiff of her perfume an instant before her arm slipped into his, and relaxed as the M.C.'s voice requested that the guests assemble for the promenade.

"Did I see Mr. Mortimer arriving just now?" he murmured beneath the general hubbub of movement.

"You did indeed," Phryne confirmed, leading him carefully across the treacherously-polished floor to their assigned position. "There he is, three ahead of us." She arched an eyebrow. "I swear, that's the only reason his wife married him: she wanted to move up the line."

Jack glanced at their quarry, and nodded slightly. "I've kept myself uncommitted for the first polka: I'll telephone Jones then."

And then the orchestra struck the opening bars of the Grand March and the show began.

...

The first dance following the Grand March was a waltz, which they danced together. The second was a schottische, which Phryne danced with her father and Jack with the Baroness. The first foxtrot saw Phryne paired with her cousin Guy and Jack with a serious young woman who danced competently but without flair. Then Jack nodded once to Phryne and, as the first strains of the polka rang out, slipped quietly from the room.

He was back by the first lanciers, which he danced with Isabella Stanley, who was as vacuous as he remembered but at least had little opportunity to chatter at him in a lanciers. Phryne, paired with a perspiring gentleman whose toupee was already coming adrift but whose skill and good humour nonetheless made him a desirable partner for this less-intimate dance, joined their set, but it wasn't until the second schottische that they both had a break in their program and were able to draw to one side to confer.

Lady Margaret watched as the Inspector drew her daughter to one side, no doubt seeking a private moment together, and couldn't help but smile. Even after they had wealth she had never been able to give Phryne the life she deserved. She had tried, but by that time Phryne was too thoroughly entrenched in the headstrong, reckless ways which she had learned from her father, running away from her élite boarding school to drive an ambulance in a war-zone, then spending another year doing goodness-alone-knew-what with that bohemian set in Paris before her mother had finally managed to convince her to come home for the Season and make – far too late, really – her debut. She had returned with a pistol, a dagger, bobbed hair, an alarming self-possession and a flirtatious, frivolous manner which, to her mother's discerning gaze, concealed a hardness which bordered upon cruelty and was, in its turn, a means of defence for the vulnerable, lonely girl who still lingered in her heart.

Now she saw her daughter standing beside a good, honourable man, a better man, she was willing to admit in the privacy of her own thoughts, than Phryne's father had ever been. They stood close together, sipping their champagne, their eyes locked and seemingly barely aware of their surroundings, and talked without a trace of Phryne's usual Continental coquetries. As she watched a dancing couple passed close by and the Inspector laid one gentle hand on Phryne's waist, guiding her out of their path and allowing his touch to linger after its job was done. Henry walked up beside his wife and handed her a drink.

"Here you go, my dear." Seeing her distracted, he followed her gaze. "Ah, the lovebirds."

"Oh, Henry. Whatever you may think of him, isn't it wonderful to see our daughter looking so happy?"

"Mmm. I'll be surprised if Mr. Boyd finds him in his own bed tomorrow morning."

"Henry!"

...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ballroom, the affianced couple endeavoured for the sake of anyone observing them to keep their manner and tone light as they discussed a matter that was anything but.

"You did speak with Jones, didn't you?"

"Mmm. He should be here by now."

Phryne glanced casually across the room, to where George Mortimer was dancing with one of the dowagers. "He seems oblivious."

"You have him marked down for a dance?"

"The second to last waltz."

"That gives Jones plenty of time to deal with whatever's delaying him."

"And if he isn't here by the time Mortimer leaves?"

Jack considered, moving her absently out of the way of a dancing couple as he did so. "He offered you 'a brother's succour'. Perhaps we can use that in some way?"

Phryne nodded, thinking. "I can intimate that I'd like to talk to him, but in private. Try to arrange a meeting for tomorrow or the next day."

"Do you think that'll work?"

"'Your letter really made me think'," Phryne simpered, affecting a tone of fluttering feminine helplessness and stretching her eyes wide to emphasise her innocence. "'What if I _am_ making a mistake? What if Jack _is_ only after the money? But how can I break it off now, after all this?'"

Jack smiled, and took a sip of champagne to cover his amusement. Phryne simpered beautifully. He had once seen her practising it in front of a mirror. "Perfect."

The schottische ended and they exchanged a quick peck on the cheek before Phryne went in search of her partner for the redowa. Jack, who hadn't been willing to inflict his lack of practise in that particular dance on a partner, settled back against the wall to watch. As Phryne had promised, a number of people had decided to express their dislike of him tonight, but they were doing so primarily by ignoring him and refusing to talk to him. It was insulting, but it also spared him the burden of making polite conversation with people he wasn't particularly interested in conversing with, so he supposed it could have been worse.


	29. Climax 2

_Where on Earth is Jones?_

* * *

On a road just outside Richmond-Upon-Thames Detective Inspector Lancelot Jones scowled into the dark. It was late. It was cold. And it had started to rain: a thin, icy drizzle that chilled the spirit as well as the body. Four miles away a murderer was drinking champagne and dancing with attractive ladies in a nice warm ballroom, and here he was listening to two of his constables grunting and straining as they changed a blown tire. It had taken all four of them half an hour to push the bloody car back out of the ditch it had ended up in when it skidded after the wheel went, and now it looked as though it might very well be another half hour before they were able to get underway again.

"Should we proceed on foot, sir?" Constable Gosling asked.

"Not unless you fancy the idea of trying to march a nob back to the pub in this, Constable," Jones replied. "Not to mention listening to the stink the landlord'll kick up if we try to keep him there overnight."

"Maybe we could commandeer one of the nob's cars, sir?"

Jones turned and regarded his constable wearily. "Gosling, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but believe me when I say the nobs are going to be quite upset enough over this without us trying to take one of their shiny toys away." He smiled slightly, recalling his last conversation with the Australians. "Besides, Miss Fisher was confident that she could keep Mr. Mortimer there, and if Inspector Robinson trusts her then I'm confident we can to."

Robinson had indeed seemed to trust Miss Fisher to keep the murderer where they wanted him, although a little anxious about her methodology. 'I'm sure I'll think of something,' Miss Fisher had said airily, to which Robinson had replied, 'let's just stick to dancing, if possible, Miss Fisher.' Her response had left Jones more than a tad bemused: 'But Jack, I left my fans back in Melbourne.'

...

As Phryne had predicted, the evening was getting difficult. It was close to supper time, and the first set of dancing had given way to incidental music and conversation. Conversation which was, in some cases, conducted with all the disinhibition that several hours of quite impressive champagne consumption could bestow. Worse, Jack had made the mistake of entering the smoking room, primarily to check on the Baron, and therefore separating himself from the restraining influence of Phryne and Lady Margaret's presence.

"So, I hear you just upped sticks and sailed all the way from Australia to see her?" The Right Honourable Something asked, puffing cigar smoke in Jack's general direction before he took another hearty swig of champagne.

"I did," Jack confirmed, wondering just how rude it would be to simply shoulder the Right Honourable out of the way and make a break for the door. Very, probably.

"Rum thing for a man of your station, if you don't mind my saying-" he was going to say it whether Jack minded or not, so he didn't bother respond. "-Must have cost damn near every penny you had."

Well, it hadn't been quite that bad, but Jack had certainly considered working his passage home to be a real probability if Phryne had rejected his suit. "She's worth more," he responded sincerely.

"Even so. What on Earth made you decide to do such a damn fool thing as that?"

It had been a bank robbery. The robber had burst from the bank, shooting wildly, just as he and Constable Meyers exited their car. He had found himself staring down the barrel of a gun and had whirled for cover, feeling searing pain strike him in the arm as he did so. It had been a long time since he had experienced the piercing clarity that came with the conviction that he was about to die and as he slammed heavily to the pavement Phryne had flashed before his mind's eye: not just her image, but the sound of her laugh, the scent of her perfume, the taste of her whisky, the moist heat of her mouth against his, the sense of completeness when he was working a case with her by his side, the way she made him feel alive inside... an overwhelming impression of Phryneness. It had lasted only an instant before he rolled over and fired the shot that would incapacitate the robber and put him in hospital, and then Jack's conscious mind had been fully back on the case. But deep in his subconscious Phryne's voice had exclaimed 'you know what it's like when life is fleeting and it feels as though you might die at any moment!', and the next time he had the chance to think about it (while his arm was being painfully cleaned and bandaged in the same hospital where the bank robber was now shackled to a hospital bed) his mind had already been made up. If Phryne's name was to be the last word on his lips, then dammit, he would speak it without regret. He had sailed for England within a week.

Phryne knew that story, but he was damned if The Right Honourable would ever hear it from his lips. He shrugged. "I'm a fool."

The Right Honourable had nothing to say to that and simply blinked at him in bemusement for a moment before downing the last of his drink and going in search of another. Jack, breathing a quiet sigh of relief, nodded to several other men who glanced in his direction, and returned to the ballroom.

Phryne was speaking in tones of restrained archness to a small group by a window and he felt no compunction at touching her elbow, nodding briefly to the remainder of said group, and drawing her away.

"Everything alright?" She rolled her eyes.

"They wanted to know whether it was true that your father was a transport."

Jack rolled his eyes in turn. "Of course not. It was my grandfather, and only the one." He saw Phryne's eyes light up with interest. "He was just a kid. Got caught picking pockets. Very Oliver Twist. The judge was lenient on account of his age."

"Jack! You never told me that."

"It isn't exactly something I was raised to advertise. Any sign of Jones yet?"

"None whatsoever. I've been keeping an eye on George-" she nodded to where Mortimer was talking to several other gentlemen "-but I'm starting to worry. It'll be supper soon."

"And at a pinch a supper table can furnish quite a handy arsenal for a desperate man," Jack finished her thought for her. Thrown plates, scalding hot liquids, sharp knives, broken wine bottles... At this stage Mortimer would fear the noose as well as disgrace and could resort to almost anything in an effort to escape, including taking a supper companion hostage. He sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that.

...

The policemen had finally made it to Norfolk House. A man in a footman's uniform, no doubt stationed by the door in order to turn away undesirables, opened his mouth as they entered, the constables flanking their Inspector. Jones held out his badge, and the footman's mouth closed again with an audible snap.

"Right, now, how many entrances to this ballroom?" Jones asked.

...

"...Well, naturally I told her to dismiss the girl. You have to, or they'll all be at it. The Bible, of course, but if you let them go about reading just anything who knows what ideas they might get into their heads."

Jack nudged Phryne to distract her from this riveting discussion of the dangers of permitting the pursuit of self-improvement among one's domestic workforce, and nodded towards the door. Jones had finally arrived. Phryne caught Jones' eye and tilted her head towards Mortimer. He followed the direction she had indicated, and gave a nod of his own in reply. He had seen him, and moved towards him like a shark cutting towards its prey.

"Mr. George Mortimer?" Jones called as he approached, in the unmistakable accent of a working-class London boy. Mortimer turned, and his eyes widened in comprehension. For a moment he gazed at the policeman in shock, then turned and made as though to run out through the open doors leading onto the terrace. He had covered only two steps when Gosling stepped into the light.

"Going somewhere sir?" he asked.

Jones clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Mr. George Mortimer, I am arresting you for the murder of Mademoiselle Yvette Benot, also known as Miss Evie Bennet, of Poplar." Mortimer opened his mouth to protest as gasps of shock ran around the suddenly-silent room, and Jones leaned closer. "I wouldn't make a fuss, if I were you, sir. Better to walk out with a little dignity."

Mortimer went very stiff, but as Jones escorted him past Phryne he turned his head and, catching the unmistakable gleam of triumph in her eyes, broke his silence.

"She was just a stupid little French slut. How could you turn on one of your own for someone like her?"

"She _was_ one of my own," Phryne answered, in tones of cold loathing. "And you will never be."


	30. Climax 3

The ballroom erupted into a hubbub of noise in the wake of the arrest. Abigail Mortimer shrieked, collapsing into hysterics, and was ushered away by a tight knot of women. Other voices rose in query, dropped menacingly in anger. Henry Fisher closed in on his daughter and her fiancé from one side, his face like thunder, and Margaret from the other, her expression betraying her distress at such social mortification.

"What the Hell is all this about?" the Baron demanded as he reached them.

"Phryne..." the Baroness began sorrowfully.

"Father, perhaps you should send someone to telephone for a doctor," Phryne suggested, cutting them both off, "I have a feeling Mrs. Mortimer might need a sedative. Mother, perhaps now would be a good time to announce supper."

"But Cook says it'll be another ten minutes!"

"Then get them in there and settled and get the waiters pouring wine. Father! The doctor!"

Baron Fisher glared daggers at his daughter, but his eyes slipped to Jack standing very erect at her shoulder, his own gaze fixed unflinchingly on his soon-to-be father-in-law. Beside them, the Baroness clapped her hands and announced, slightly desperately, that supper would now be served. A new ripple went through the crowd as they began by habit to arrange themselves for the short walk to the tables. Lady Margaret went with them. Henry, after a moment more spent glaring at the guests of honour, turned abruptly towards the nearest maid. Phryne and Jack were left alone, an island of stillness in a sea of movement.

"I don't think an arrest has meant this much to me since Murdoch Foyle," Phryne commented pensively.

"At least no-one will ever forget our engagement party," Jack remarked, giving her a quick squeeze of agreement.

...

Fortunately for Lady Fisher, supper was a triumph: a light, clear consommé, followed by quail and saddle of lamb, and finished with individual ices and a selection of cakes, all washed down with fine French wine, followed by coffee and port. The post-prandial drinks were taken in the dining room and then those gentlemen who wished to retired to the smoking room for cigars and more port, while the rest lingered to converse with the ladies in the ballroom. By the time dancing recommenced shortly before one, Abigail Mortimer had been attended by a doctor who had dispensed a light sedative and sent her home to rest, and her husband's arrest had turned from an outrage to a delicious scandal to be delighted over throughout the coming weeks.

Phryne and Jack shared a few more dances before the last, slow waltz was announced. Those who remained to see it would remember it afterwards as one of the most intensely romantic dances they had ever seen, the engaged couple moving as closely together as (or perhaps a little more closely than) propriety allowed, their gazes firmly locked, until, as the final bars died away, the Inspector gathered his fiancée close into a tender embrace, whispering something in her ear that turned her smile from radiant to dazzling.

They stood together at the door, along with the Baron and Baroness, and farewelled those guests who were not remaining for the night, accepting handshakes, congratulations and best wishes as their eyes grew gritty and their heads began to ache with tiredness. It was almost three when they finally made their way upstairs. The corridor was deserted, and Jack didn't hesitate before following Phryne into her room. A maid had left hot water by the basin and they took turns washing their faces before discarding their clothing and falling tiredly into bed.

"Was your grandfather really a transport?" Phryne asked as she laid her head on Jack's shoulder. It was a question one simply didn't ask, but even if it hadn't been it would never have crossed her mind to connect one of the deported rejects of Victorian England with her oh-so-respectable police inspector.

In the darkness, Jack smiled. It wasn't a subject one broached in polite society, but knowing as much as he did about Phryne's lineage he had sometimes wished for the opportunity to reassure her that his family history, too, had its scandals. "He was indeed. Get sent out just a few years before they did away with it. He used to have my father read Oliver Twist to me, and he'd bang his walking stick on the floor and tell me-" Jack's voice changed in imitation of the old man's tones "-'Now you pay attention, boy. Mr. Dickens, he knew what he was talking about. Misery and death, that's all there is to a life like that. Nothing but misery and death. Mr. Dickens, he knew. You walk a straight path, you hear me boy? Neither to the left nor the right. Keep to the narrow way, my boy. The narrow way.'"

Phryne chuckled throatily. "He sounds like quite a character."

"Oh, he was, he was. And pleased as punch when I decided to join the police. I remember the first time I walked in in my uniform," he felt a lump rise in his throat, the memory now bittersweet with loss. "It was just a few months before he died, and he looked up at me, and he said 'my grandson, a copper. Who would have thought it. Two generations, and here's redemption standing right here before me. The fruit of repentance, borne today.' It made him very happy."

"It sounds as though he got religion in a big way."

Now it was Jack's turn to chuckle. "That was how he met my grandmother: her parents were missionaries. They converted him, and then she married him. Very devout, both of them, but they were never mean with it. Dull, sometimes, but never mean."

Phryne yawned and nestled against him. "I wish I could have met them. And your parents."

He kissed her head. "Me too."

...

An hour later, Phryne slipped carefully from the bed, causing Jack to stir and murmur in his sleep. There had not yet been a repeat of the screaming horrors which had engulfed him the night before they left for Lille, but his rest was seldom untroubled, and she knew he drew comfort from her presence. Now he moved restlessly, his brow furrowing as he sensed her absence.

"Shush Jack, I'm not going far," she promised, and he subsided with a mutter. She pulled on her dressing-gown and went to stand by the window, pulling the curtain slightly to one side so that she could stare pensively out into the darkness.

Jack woke from a half-formed nightmare, his arm reaching instinctively for the by-now-familiar comfort of Phryne's presence, only to encounter empty space where her warm body should have lain. He forced his tired eyes open, struggling against a sudden, irrational surge of anxiety. "Phryne?"

"I'm here, Jack."

He leaned up on his elbows, his eyes searching the shadows in the direction of her voice until they located her silhouette by the window. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

Instead he swung his legs out of bed, gathering the top blanket around him as protection from the cold, and made his way to her side.

"'f a woman says it's nothing, it's never nothing," he commented, wrapping his arms around her. After a moment she sighed and leaned back into him, so whatever the 'nothing' was, he knew it wasn't 'nothing' he had done.

"How are we going to live like this, Jack?" she asked in a dull tone. "In this place? With these people?"

He sighed, too tired for dissemblement. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "But if you really don't want to I don't see why we have to."

She turned in his arms, and he could sense rather than see her puzzled frown. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Well, I remember what Miss Sharpe said. I can always take a leave of absence from the House of Lords, and I'm sure we can appoint a manager for the estate. Between that and Miss Sharpe, and your accountant, I doubt we'd need to spend much time in England at all. Once you purchase a new plane we can always fly back here whenever we need to, so we wouldn't have to waste months aboard ship. Or, we could probably sell off the estate, if you preferred, or you could simply renounce the title in favour of whoever's next on the list. You must have a cousin or something, somewhere." He stopped, suddenly aware of what he was saying. "If you wanted to, of course."

She could barely make out his face in the dark, just the outline of his cheekbone and the glimmer of his eyes, and she reached up to stroke his cheek. "You've looked into this," she remarked.

He shrugged again. "A little."

"Why?"

He struggled to find words. "You've seemed a little ambivalent about the barony at times, and I know how much you value your freedom. I'll go along with whatever you decide to do, of course; I just wanted to know what decisions might be a possibility."

Her only answer was to balance on the tips of her toes – she always seemed very much smaller to him without heels, although in reality the difference was only a couple of inches – and wrap her arms tightly about his neck. After a moment, when he realised she wasn't going to respond further, he shifted his grip and began to guide her back towards the bed.

"C'mon. Let's get some sleep."

...

He awoke again in thin, wintery daylight to the brightness of Phryne's eyes studying his face from only a couple of inches away. She was smiling and, as he awoke, leaned in and kissed him slowly.

"You are a wonderful man," she murmured as she pulled away.

He chuckled softly, stretching. "Well, that's certainly a pleasant sentiment to wake up to. May I ask what I did to earn that particular accolade?"

"We could appoint an estate manager. We could sell the estate. I could renounce the barony. Jack Robinson, do you realise that you're the first person in fourteen years to act like I have any options beside mouldering in this place for the rest of my life?"

He frowned. "The first?"

"Everyone else has just taken it for granted that I should be absolutely _delighted_ to embrace the barony as my destiny. _Noblesse oblige_ , and all that. Not a single person has ever stopped to ask me whether that's want I want." She stopped and grimaced. "Although I suppose it is terribly selfish of me to enjoy all the privileges of wealth and title while complaining about the accompanying duties."

"Not at all," he reassured her at once. "There are plenty of wealthy, privileged people who exploit both position and wealth for their own benefit on a daily basis. Look at George Mortimer, for one, and have you forgotten what poor Dot endured before she came to work for you? It's no wonder so many of the less-privileged are hungry for change. The George Mortimers of this world might see it as a betrayal if you gave up your title or sold off the estate, but I doubt Bert and Cec would share his sentiments."

That made her laugh a little. "And what about you?"

"I meant what I said last night: I'll go along with whatever you decide to do. If you want to move to England and send me to the House of Lords then I'll be happy to represent you there. If you want to give it all up and buy a bungalow in Lilydale, that's fine too."

"Lilydale? Really Jack, there are limits! But I do understand what you mean."

He pulled her closer. Being kissed and called wonderful really was a very pleasant way to wake up, and he had every intention of providing her with fresh evidence of just how wonderful he was in the immediate future. "Good," he told her, and kissed her back.

...

Breakfast was served buffet-style in the dining room, and afterwards they slipped away hand-in-hand like naughty children so that Phryne could show him every nook and cranny of Norfolk House. In this way they were able to avoid the Baron and Baroness – and the departing guests – until dinnertime, which proved to be unpleasant.

"A man arrested in my own house," Henry remarked as he stabbed at his meal. "Really, Phryne, is nothing sacred?"

"Churches," Phryne answered at once. "Chapels. Cathedrals. Synagogues. Stone circles. Norfolk House hardly qualifies, which means that you have no ability to grant sanctuary. Honestly, Father, would you rather have let him get away with murder?"

"Of course not. But why on Earth did you have to arrange to have him arrested here?"

"To make sure no-one ever forgets my engagement party," she shot back tartly. Her mother groaned.

"Phryne, please."

"Well, you've certainly achieved that," Henry replied grimly. "I shudder to think what your wedding will be like: perhaps it's just as well you're planning on holding it in Australia."

...

It was as they were driving away the next day that a line from the wedding service popped into Phryne's head: 'therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.' Well, she thought, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

"Robinson," she said quite suddenly.

"Hum? Yes?" Jack, who had been preoccupied with his relief at leaving, responded at once to his name.

"Mrs. Phryne Robinson. That's what I want to be called when we're married," she elaborated decisively, glancing across to see his reaction.

Jack felt himself begin to smile broadly. He had never dared admit to himself just how much it would mean to him if she chose to renounce her father's name in favour of his, but now that she had he could acknowledge that the thought made him glad, very glad.

"Well then," he said as calmly as he could, "that's what you shall be called."


	31. Coda

_This is it folks, the final chapter. This has been the longest fic I've ever written, the one with most complex mystery, and (for the record) the best researched. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it._

 _A huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this fic, and especially those who wrote a review or reviews. Thank you to all those who have been with me from the beginning, particularly Bellairian who has given a lot of support and encouragement behind the scenes as well. Thank you also to the likes of RCGgymratmom and Elsa007, who jumped in part-way through and paid me the massive compliment of binge-reading the whole thing and reviewing every chapter. Thank you (when she gets this far) to VavaVoom7, my friend IRL who I've succeeded in sucking into the crazy world of fanfiction. Finally, for always being only a message away (especially when I decided on the spur of the moment to give Jack the transport-grandfather backstory and got all excited about it), thank you to the wonderful FoxFireside._

 _This whole fic had its genesis in just two scenes: the first in Chapter Three where Phryne flings herself down the stairs into Jack's arms, and the final exchange at the end of this chapter. Everything else came later._

* * *

 **Part Fourteen: Coda**

Phryne's birthday just a few days later was celebrated with a very different type of party: dinner at the Ritz with a large and colourful collection of friends followed by a night spent dancing in the very best (or worst, depending on one's point of view) London jazz clubs, after which Jack presented her with her gift, a leather-bound book of poems by Rumi. The beauty and sensuality of the verses, which were illustrated in the Arabian style with geometric designs and twining vines, delighted Phryne, who insisted on having Jack read them aloud to her at bedtime the following night... at least, for a little while.

An excited Jane arrived to spend the Christmas holidays with them, flinging herself into her foster-mother's arms with cries of "Is it true? Really true?" and then, when Phryne removed her glove to display her engagement ring, embracing a startled Jack with equal enthusiasm, shouting "I'm glad, I'm so glad!" until she suddenly remembered that she was a young lady (and he was a policeman, even if he was a pretty decent one) and withdrew in embarrassment.

Henry and Margaret also joined them for Christmas, which made for a household that was not only full to the rafters, but also at times rather tense. But, in spite of the bill for the engagement party, the Baron's finances now seemed to be on an even if less than ideal keel, and late at night in the darkened privacy of their bedroom Phryne and Jack discussed plans for their return to Australia.

Detective Inspector Lancelot ("call me Lance, please") Jones and his wife, Agnes, were invited to Kensington for what turned out to be a very pleasant evening, after which Lance invited Jack to join him one night for a pint at his East End local. The first question he asked when the first round had been duly procured was "so, how did you and Miss Fisher meet, anyway?" At which Jack chuckled and replied, "Well, I suppose it's rather a funny story..."

They returned to Paris, where they strolled hand in hand along the boulevards, explored the museums and art galleries, visited Phryne's friends, tasted the very best of French cuisine, and kissed atop the Eiffel Tower. The doors in Jack's mind had never completely closed after his return to the Somme, but although plenty of shadows still lurked in the corners the warm glow of his new life with Phryne ensured that they didn't manifest with the intensity that had oppressed him for so long. It was while they were walking home from an evening spent dancing to bal musette while drinking cheap wine and laughing in dingy Montparnasse cafés that he felt a wave of happiness sweep over him and realised that Phryne had indeed unlocked the delights of Paris to him.

On a cold morning in late January they stood together in the churchyard at All Saints in Poplar and read the words inscribed upon the memorial Phryne had commissioned for Yvette and her son:

Yvette Benot  
French Women's 3rd Ambulance Unit, Belgium  
Born France, 1898; died Poplar, 1929  
And her infant son, George  
Died Poplar, 1918  
'For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed:  
neither hid that shall not be known.'

The scripture had been underlined in Yvette's mission Bible, and Jack had suggested it as the last, fitting, words of a woman who had lived so much of her life in unwilling secrecy and died trying to break the silence which George Mortimer had imposed upon her. He had purchased an orchid – symbol of feminine beauty and grace – and laid it before Yvette's memorial, an extravagance offered in death as poor recompense for a life of deprivation and hardship.

George Mortimer's name and the sordid details of his treatment of his French lover and their child made for a sensational case that was reported in both the Times and the Mirror, as well as every other newspaper in the country. Vilified by the press, disowned by the Conservative party, estranged from his wife, abandoned by his friends and found guilty by a jury of his peers, his death sentence must almost have come as a relief to a man who had been so thoroughly and publically disgraced.

And then one day in early March Phryne and Jack found themselves standing upon the docks before the steamer that would carry them home to Melbourne.

"I saw you leave Australia with a single valise," Jack remarked as they waited for a porter to collect their luggage. "So how it is, Miss Fisher, that you're returning with-" he made an elaborate show of counting "-two trunks, two suitcases, four hat-boxes, and a carpet-bag?"

"Souvenirs, Jack," Phryne replied airily, deciding against pointing out that she had also arranged to ship several tea-chests full of items back to Australia. "And I'm not planning on coming back here for a very long time."

That was certainly true. She had made arrangements for her flat to be rented out, and Mr. and Mrs. Page had been reluctantly informed that their services would no longer be required. Just a few days after Phryne left they would be retiring to a cottage in Kent. Mrs. Page was planning on taking up quilting, and Mr. Page intended to keep bees.

"Anyway," she glanced at his own heavy trunk, which was filled almost entirely with books, "It's not as if I'm the only one. You may recall that we _do_ have bookshops in Australia, Jack."

"Well, I need something to keep me occupied on the journey," he retorted.

She pouted and moved closer to him, running her hand down his lapel. "I thought that was what I was for."

He leaned closer, speaking for her ears only. "Two months, Miss Fisher. Two hopefully blissfully uneventful months without so much as a lost necklace to worry about. I'm not sure what kind of man you think you're marrying, but I can assure you that I plan on making plenty of time for reading as well as... other diversions."

"Two months at sea..." she sighed, thinking wistfully of her Avian as two porters wheeled their luggage away to be loaded and they started together towards the gangplank.

"Well, at least it'll give us time to plan the wedding," Jack replied.

"You know, I'm sure I remember hearing somewhere that a Captain has the authority to perform weddings at sea," Phryne remarked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm fairly certain that's a myth," Jack responded. "But," he added, "a ship this size is bound to have a chaplain, and weddings are part of their stock in trade." And he gave her a broad, beaming smile as he proffered his arm. "Shall we, Miss Fisher?"

She smiled back and looped her arm through his. "I think we shall, Inspector Robinson."


End file.
